Pope Benedict Emeritus XVI is in worse health than he let on after stepping down from the papacy in February, says a report.

Benedict, 85, made history when he stepped down on Feb. 28, becoming the first pope to do so since 1415. He told faithful that he was no longer strong enough in mind or body to carry out his duties as pope.

The Telegraph reports long-time Vatican journalist Paloma Gomez Borerro as saying that the former pope’s health has deteriorated rapidly in the past 15 days. “We won’t have him with us for very much longer,” she told The Telegraph.

However, other Vatican insiders told the paper that Gomez Borerro was being “alarmist,” but did they note that Benedict has become frailer over the past months.

Another insider said that Benedict’s declining health was evident. In his last months as pope, Benedict was having more trouble walking, even with the use of a cane.

In Rome for the election of a new pope, Father Raymond J. de Souza, a Roman Catholic priest for the Archdiocese of Kingston, Ont., and editor-in-chief of Convivium, a magazine about faith in Canadian public life, met with Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, much touted as a papal contender, at the Vatican.

Q: We have a new pope elected, Pope Francis. Could you tell us why this man was chosen?

A: This man was chosen because the College of Cardinals had a sense that the time was right for a leader coming from South America and this was a man of great authority in the area. I’ve known him for many years, we are good friends and, at the meeting of the Latin American Episcopacy in 2007, in Aparecida, Brazil, he was the main figure who encouraged this continental mission. He came to Quebec City [in 2008] out of friendship for me and to support me because usually he doesn’t accept outside invitations. He barely comes to Rome—only when it’s absolutely necessary. Because he is a pastor: he’s concerned with his people. I think we’ve made a great choice. And it will bear fruit in the life of the Church.

Q: Many of the cardinals have said they don’t know him very well. What do you know about him that makes you hopeful?

A: Simplicity. And he’s a good shepherd, very close to his flock. Last Sunday, he was like a parish priest: he did the mass and then he went out and greeted the people. This is extraordinary. For me, the main encouragement for the people in the field is his election. The priests, deacons, pastoral agents will identify with him.

Q: You spent time in Colombia so you have more experience than most Canadian or European bishops with Latin America. Did you get to know Cardinal Bergoglio then or afterwards?

A: Not when we there. I was a member of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America even before being at the Congregation for Bishops. On the occasion of these plenary [sessions] we would meet and talk and we had common friends in Rome. I can say we shared a common vision. He’s a man of experience and I think he’ll be a reformer, too. The name Francis is a conscious choice. He will certainly act in the Curia; we know there is a need of reform, but reform in the sense to regain moral credibility. This was an important factor. The Vatileaks did great damage to the Church. Bad information, all kinds of comments that you couldn’t necessarily contradict and very secretive. I think he’ll be able to do something for that, too. We need a broader vision—beyond Europe. There is a great need of support of Christianity in Latin America to counteract the influence of the Pentecostals in particular. So his election is a great encouragement. It will also have political weight. Not because he’ll be involved in politics but because it will strengthen Catholicism in Argentina, for example. It will force governments to be more respectful of the Catholic community, of Catholic culture in these countries. It’s really good news.

Q: You are a younger cardinal but you’ve participated in two conclaves, one in 2005 and one in 2013. Both conclaves elected a pope on the first full day. What has the experience been like for you?

A: Very good. It’s basically a spiritual experience. When popes were heads of states with great properties it was very difficult to elect a pope because there were many material interests involved, political interests involved. Thank God, we got rid of this. So the more you go forward, the more the College of Cardinals is autonomous. You’re not bound to a context; for example, at this time, the political context of Italy is very uncertain. But the College of Cardinals—there are many Italians in it, but the great majority could make a decision without being conditioned by the local politics. This is a great freedom for the Church. And the combination of the prayer, the intense prayer of the whole Church, and the wisdom of the College of Cardinals, is a great formula to elect a pope, to be free and to give to the world a surprise—a positive one.

Q: One of the great surprises was the resignation of Pope Benedict. He was not only your pope but you were also a student of his—

A: Not so much a student of his. But I would say we had close theological visions. I’m more a disciple of [Hans urs] von Balthasar [the Catholic theologian] and [Benedict] is a great admirer of von Balthasar. When he went to Castel Gandolfo he brought von Balthasar’s Theological Aesthetics to reread.

Q: Do you hope that he has a continuation?

A: First, I think he did three times what we could have expected from him, being elected at 78. It’s extraordinary what he did, to write his own books.?I said and I repeat: a great doctor of the Church. His homilies will remain as a heritage to be mediated. He’s not just a theologian without a philosophy underneath. So we have a lot to think about after his pontificate and after his intellectual contribution. What he did with his books is he renewed theological exegesis. He bridged a gap between theology and exegesis—extraordinary! We needed that badly. We can build on that for the future.

Q: In the days before the election there was a great excitement in Canada for the possibility of the guillotine to fall on your neck, if I can put it in that unusual way—

A: [laughs] Yes.

Q: Maybe you could comment on what that was like for you?

A: This time was very special for me and my family, an incredible experience and a positive one. Even my family told me, “Oh, we’ve discovered chapters of your life we didn’t know very well, like your 10 years in Latin America.” They’ve interviewed my friends and people with whom I’m still in contact—wonderful. It was a difficult exercise for me. I had to be prepared. Not by ambition, but just by reasoning. I told the media, “In the position I’m in, who knows what can happen.”

Q: Were you afraid at all?

A: Less than before because I’ve been working with the pope so closely. Out of what I was doing with him I could imagine what he was doing with the other chiefs of the dicasteries [departments in the Vatican] and I was part of other congregations—a plenary here and there. I’m very much aware of the whole situation of the Church and I learned so much about situations in the different continents where I’ve studied dioceses to provide for bishops. So all these things told me I had a certain preparation for that but, you know, there are many factors. I’m convinced this was a good choice. His first steps and gestures confirm it. We needed a good shepherd, close to the people. This is already a success. There will be reform: he is free, completely free, he has no link whatsoever?.?.?.

Q: No link to what, Your Eminence?

A: To inside the Vatican. And he knows. But he’s independent. In that sense, he’ll make decisions—not without pressure here and pressure there—but he will listen and then he will make his decision. If you saw, when we met on Friday, at the end of the line, he started business immediately. It was even surprising for me.

Q: Did he ask you for your dossiers?

A: Absolutely! I will not go into the details but he was gesturing with determination.

Q: What is your hope for the Church in Canada?

A: I hope for a year of faith that will make a difference. And we have two or three things that will make a difference. The renunciation of Pope Benedict was a great act of faith on his part. He did that with spiritual discernment; he wasn’t forced. Other popes have been exiled, they’ve been killed, they’ve been forced to renounce. He did it being aware of his limitations so a successor could do it better. For our country, it forces a reflection on what is the Catholic faith, what is our heritage, what is our Church. And maybe, a sort of revision. I think there will be an awakening among the youth. I’ve seen that already in some—they’re not against it, they’re just not aware of what is the Catholic faith. But there will be, I hope, a movement of conversation, because we need to retrieve that if we want to make sense of our presence in this continent. We must be proud of having an American pope—American in the broad sense.

Red is the colour of martydom, and thus used for papal footwear. A few years ago, the Vatican newspaper quashed the rumour that Benedict’s were made by Prada, stating, “The pope, in summary, does not wear Prada, but Christ.” Since he was a cardinal, he had frequented the tiny shop of Antonio Arellano (below)—a Peruvian-born shoemaker with a shop close to Vatican City—for handmade footwear, size 42. Arellano also did any repairs: Benedict’s shoes often wear out in the toes from kneeling in prayer. As pope emeritus, Benedict can no longer wear red, so on his first day of retirement, he switched to brown loafers purchased during a trip to Mexico.

Alessia Pierdomenico/Reuters

Clothes

When it comes to colours, white rules for the pope. It’s reserved exclusively for popes, current and former. So the cassock, mozzetta (shoulder cape), mitre (tall pointed bishop’s hat) and even the zucchetto (skullcap) are all white. On top of the plain white cassock, the pope’s vestments will change with the liturgical calendar—so he’ll often wear purple during Lent and Advent, gold on feast days such as Easter, and red on Good Friday and Palm Sunday. In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI reintroduced the fanon, a gold-and-white striped double cape that had rarely been seen since the 1960s. He also altered the appearance of the pallium (above, middle and right), a narrow circular piece that fits over the shoulders with tails front and back. Shaped like a Y and decorated with crosses, it is worn over his other vestments. Its wool is woven in a Roman monastery and comes, in part, from two sheep consecrated by the Pope on St. Agnes day (she takes her name from the “lamb of God”) and cared for by nuns. For the new pope, three sets of clothes were at the ready—in small, medium and large—and they were quickly tailored by nuns before he was seen by the outside world. They were made by the tailors at Gammarelli, which has been in the papal fashion business for two centuries.

Max Rossi/Reuters

Hats

Most often the pope wears his white zucchetto (skullcap), reserving the mitre (a tall pointed bishop’s hat) for big religious events. Benedict wore hats of all shapes and sizes, including papal designs not seen for centuries. During the 2005 Christmas season, he wore a camauro, a red velvet hat trimmed with white ermine, while at a 2007 open-air mass he chose a traditional red cappello romano (a wide, flat-rimmed hat).

Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters

Rings

Each pope gets a custom-made fisherman’s ring at his inauguration. Made of gold, it features Peter casting his net—the apostles were “fishers of men,” according to Mark 1:17—and is inscribed with the pope’s name in Latin. Part of his regalia, it was used to seal letters until the 19th century. While Benedict XVI usually wore his (top), most popes find the ring too cumbersome. John Paul II had a ring in the shape of a cross (middle). John XXIII (bottom) chose an ornate ring set with a stone, while others had simple bands. Upon the end of a papacy, the fisherman’s ring is destroyed.

]]>The 2007 film El Baño del Papa (The Pope’s Toilet) tells the tale of Melo, a village in Uruguay, as it waits for the visit of Pope John Paul II. Its citizens bandy about numbers of potential visitors to the village to the point where it becomes a sort of inflationary frenzy. Hundreds will show up! Thousands! Hundreds of thousands! Windfall! A chicken in every pot!

A poor lot, Meloans see the visit as a virtual lottery ticket, and energetically set about making food, flags and trinkets to sell to the impending throng. Beto, a smuggler and enterprising sort, thinks he has the perfect product: hundreds of toilets where believers can relieve themselves.

Of course, the imagined crowds never materialize. The village is disillusioned. Melo loses his shirt (and his daughter’s tuition money.) There is much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

You might say that right now, at this moment, La Motte, Quebec is El Baño del Papa redux. La Motte isn’t destitute or in the middle of nowhere, as some media reports have suggested. Just the opposite: the village of about 500 sits in the cradle formed by Rouyn-Noranda, Val D’Or and Amos, three large-ish towns made prosperous by Quebec’s mining boom. Touched by mining wealth, La Motte has grown by nearly 20 per cent in the last six years alone.

Yet the prospect of a made-in-La Motte pope has the town abuzz. People aren’t quite making Ouellet key chains or toothbrushes yet—judging by the empty streets here, they are more likely in their living rooms, staring at a certain televised Italian smokestack like the rest of the world. But as Wadowice, Poland or Marktl, Germany can attest, Pope tourism is big business, and La Motte is already bracing itself for the potential onslaught.

Visiting reporters are greeted in the church/community centre by Stéphanie Lamarche, the director of tourism for the Abitibi-Temiscamingue, who is quick to extol the “religious and non-religious patrimony” of the region.

“People in La Motte must make sure that tourists are well-managed,” she says. “Religious tourists don’t just come for one night. They stay a weekend or even a week at a time.”

Down the street, Valérie Côté and her kids put the finishing touches on an eight-foot snow Pope effigy on her front lawn. To be sure, the 33-year-old is hardly religious, and is more indifferent than excited at the prospect of Ouellet as pope. “Either we take advantage of it or we let it just happen,” says the owner of a socially engaged theatre company that produces plays about the difficulties of homosexual youth and the ravages of violence towards women.

“We can make bread loafs in the form of crucifixes,” Coté says, riffing off business ideas. “We could do Passion of the Christ on the town square each summer. We can have a bus that shows where Ouellet took a bath as a kid. That, or we leave.”

Danny Lévesque won’t leave, but he’s no El Baño del Papa­-style convert to religious-inspired trinketry. He and his partner Liette Constant live just out of spitting distance from La Motte’s church; it dominates the view from their living room. A year and a half ago, he and Constant wrote “La Chanson du Pape” (“The Pope’s Song”), a jumpy, call-and-response folk song that satirizes La Motte’s potential papal windfall.

Are we going to have a pope chez nous, are we going to have a pope?

We’ll take water from La Motte Lake to make holy water

We’ll open a big old shop to sell plastic Virgin Marys

Little Jesuses made out of plywood

The face of the pope in plaster

We’ll build a cathedral in the middle of the village

It’ll be so huge it’ll touch the sky.

“I see it as a huge tourist trap,” says the 54-year-old Lévesque of the papal tourism industry. “It’s religious capitalism. The tourism office is treating this like a lottery ticket, and they say that if Ouellet gets in we win the lottery.”

And if he doesn’t?

Lévesque emits a raspberry. “The balloon will deflate in a hurry,” he says.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/la-motte-waits-for-word-from-the-vatican/feed/0Now Dennis Rodman is in Rome and he wants to meet the new Popehttp://www.macleans.ca/general/now-dennis-rodman-wants-to-meet-the-new-pope/
http://www.macleans.ca/general/now-dennis-rodman-wants-to-meet-the-new-pope/#commentsWed, 13 Mar 2013 13:04:54 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=359671Former basketball star wants a ride in the popemobile, too

Former NBA star Dennis Rodman walks out of a a street near St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on March 13, 2013. (Riccardo De Luca/AP)

It wasn’t enough to meet Kim Jong Un, one of the most reviled leaders in the world. Now former basketball bad boy Dennis Rodman says he’s on his way to Rome to meet the next Pope.

Gossip site TMZ reported Tuesday that Rodman said his “people” were in touch with sources in The Vatican who were going to arrange a meeting with the new pontiff. “I want to be anywhere in the world that I’m needed … I want to spread a message of peace and love throughout the world,” Rodman told TMZ.

The proposition seems a bit crazy, even for TMZ. Just to confirm, the site caught up with Rodman Wednesday morning at the Miami airport where he was boarding a plane bound for Rome.

“I’m doing all these great, historical things now,” says Rodman, who continued on to pick his favourite pope: John Paul.

“I think he was cool as hell,” Rodman says of John Paul. “He was pretty much a pimp.” (Attention Vatican: “cool as hell” and “pimp” are both meant as good things, at least when they’re coming from Rodman.)

Rodman also says he’s planning a ride in the popemobile. “I think you guys going be shocked at what I do,” Rodman says. “I think you gonna see me in my popemobile doing my ‘thang.”

This latest publicity stunt comes as part of a bizarre return to the public spotlight for Rodman in the past month. Earlier this week, Rodman announced he was planning a summer vacation in North Korea to visit “my friend” Kim Jong Un. Rodman first visited the country in February with members of the Harlem Globetrotters and journalists from Vice magazine to make a film about what they called “basketball diplomacy.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/general/now-dennis-rodman-wants-to-meet-the-new-pope/feed/0Day 2 of the conclave: Black smokehttp://www.macleans.ca/general/day-2-of-the-conclave-black-smoke/
http://www.macleans.ca/general/day-2-of-the-conclave-black-smoke/#commentsWed, 13 Mar 2013 10:56:03 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=359649[View the story “Black smoke on the second day of the conclave” on Storify]
Black smoke on the second day of the conclave

The archbishop of Buenos Aires has just been elected Pope on the second day of the conclave. White smoke from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel signalled the selection just after 7 p.m. local time.

Maclean’s correspondent Brian Bethune is in Rome and has been filing reports since the start of the conclave:

Tuesday, March 12

7:32 a.m.: There are only so many ways Canadians get internationally famous.

There’s hockey, of course, and that guy up in space, and a teenage pop star. But the best-known Canadian name around the world right now may belong to a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.

In St Peter’s Square the night before the conclave to choose a successor to Pope Benedict XVI was to begin, there were three sorts of people milling around, and the ordinary faithful were the fewest in number. The police presence was massive, large enough to be the group most at risk from nuns—easily the most aggressive drivers in Vatican City if not in Rome—flying around in tiny cars.

Most of the cops were engaged in reading their smartphones—in Toronto public safety campaigns are directed at texting-distracted drivers, here they must lose distracted pedestrians in large numbers—or keeping a bored eye on the metal detectors the cardinal electors will pass through on their way to the Sistine Chapel. But both groups were outnumbered by the media staking out prize positions, some from unexpected places, like a Korean wire service or New Delhi TV.

They’re all happy to talk to a Canadian journalist, mostly because they’re down the media pecking order—a telegenic Portuguese-speaking priest with a sizeable entourage took up serious acreage for his interview—but partly because any given Canadian just might know Cardinal Marc Ouellet.

“Your cardinal stands a chance,” exclaims Indian reporter Noupur Tiwari of NDTV, a veteran of papal conclaves—she was here in 2005 for the election of Pope Benedict XVI. Then there were only two Indian cardinals; now there are five, all of voting age. (“There’s just the one Korean,” throws in a clearly unhappy South Korean journalist, “and he’s too old.”)

Interest in India is high, continues Tiwari, because of the rising number of cardinals and Indian Catholics, now 18 million strong), a relatively new female Indian saint and Mother Teresa’s ongoing canonization process. But especially because of the widespread feeling that this might be the moment the papacy leaves European hands for the first in 1,300 years. If it does, they’ll have much bigger entourages next time around.

In all the Third World pope buzz that has swirled since Pope Benedict announced his resignation a month ago, most has focused on African or Asian papabili.

Strangely little, given how South America is the most Catholic of continents, has been said about Latin America (Mexico and Central America add another 100 million to the total.) Until very recently. Suddenly, everyone is talking about Brazil’s Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer, Archbishop of Sao Paulo, the largest archdiocese in the world’s largest Catholic.

Viewing his record and his lack of charismatic presence–the same knock that may prove decisive in the case of Canada’ Cardinal Marc Oullett–points to only two favourable points: the age (63) is good, and he apparently gets along splendidly with the cardinals of the Curia, the papal bureaucrats whose incompetence and worse has made Church governance among the key issues–if not the single most important one–that the cardinals will weigh in their choice for pope. By this theory, the Italians–by which Vatican waters mean the bureaucrats–know they can’t get their wish, an Italian and pro-Curia pontiff, so they’ll settle for what’s important in that combo: the pro-Curia part. (In mirror opposite, the reformers are said to be coalescing around an Italian, Milan’s Cardenal Angelo Scola, to sweeten their bitter change package.)

Like every other pathway proposed–and assiduously leaked by interested parties–for any of a half-dozen papal contenders, it’s perfectly logical.

Unlike most, moreover, it does actually reflect what is a serious divisive issue within the College of Cardinals. Whether the business-as-usual (with a few tweaks, of course) cardinals or the housecleaners prevail, however, will probably not turn on specific candidates, but on whether those voters–67, more than half–appointed by Benedict think the pope emeritus was hamstrung all along by his bureaucracy or by his own missteps.

2:22 p.m.

The Italian media, not exactly known for their even-handed lack of national bias in soccer coverage, are no less intensely nationalistic when it comes to another favourite national sport, pope picking. It’s anointed Milan Cardinal Angelo Scola the favourite.

That’s hardly surprising: for one thing, anyone who wants an Italian AND a reformer has few options. For another, a lot of non-Italians like him too. At 71 he is neither too old nor too young–it’s still uncertain how Benedict’s resignation will play out in all its possible ramifications, but it has surely made the traditional age calculation at best an uncertain factor. The son of a truck driver, who turned to the priesthood relatively late (age 29), Scola has known Benedict for 40 years and is close to him theologically and personally.

His election might foretell what one Catholic commentator has called ”the continuation of the Benedictine papacy by other means.” Perhaps more intriguingly, Scola’s apparent willingness to spearhead the cardinal bloc wishing to thoroughly revamp the Curia probably means that reform was indeed the principal task Benedict felt unable to take on in his final years, but was equally unwilling to let fester until his death.

8:49 a.m.: The first murder of crows to fly by this morning was only five in number, a wholly good thing in itself: Canadian crows may sound like rusty gate hinges, but Roman crows sound like angry rusty gate hinges.

But more importantly, the crows came from the right, the lucky direction for crow augury around here since Romulus killed Remus. The luck has yet to do much for anyone in the Sistine Chapel, but it’s early days as Canada’s Fr. Thomas Rosica tells a Vatican press conference: only Pius XII in 1939 was elected as early as the third ballot.

The unlikeliness of a new pope this morning didn’t stop people in their tens of thousands coming to St. Peter’s Square any more than the driving rain did. There were Brazilian and Romanian flags-the atmosphere does have a certain similarity to a Euro Cup match-Polish monks and Scottish priests, and nuns both numerous, and to North American eyes, startlingly young. Like everyone else they are just waiting.

The Vatican Press Office evidently thought bored journalists were bound to start trouble and called their press conference, which had so little news to impart, that it was reduced to giving the press excessively detailed information about the chemicals in the smoke.

During the briefing Fr. Rosica inadvertently referred to Benedict as the pope. But that too is understandable, because the idea of an ex-pope watching on TV the cardinals file into the Sistine Chapel to elect his successor is still mind-boggling.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/general/the-conclave-so-far-buzz-swirl-and-anticipation/feed/2Picking the next Pope: ‘March Madness for Catholics’http://www.macleans.ca/authors/aaron-hutchins/picking-the-next-pope-march-madness-for-catholics/
http://www.macleans.ca/authors/aaron-hutchins/picking-the-next-pope-march-madness-for-catholics/#commentsWed, 13 Mar 2013 09:43:15 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=359621Aaron Hutchins on those who will bet on anything

]]>The Italian media, not exactly known for their even-handed lack of national bias in soccer coverage, are no less intensely nationalistic when it comes to another favourite national sport, pope picking. It’s anointed Milan Cardinal Angelo Scola the favourite. That’s hardly surprising: for one thing, anyone who wants an Italian AND a reformer has few options. For another, a lot of non-Italians like him too. At 71 he is neither too old nor too young–it’s still uncertain how Benedict’s resignation will play out in all its possible ramifications, but it has surely made the traditional age calculation at best an uncertain factor. The son of a truck driver, who turned to the priesthood relatively late (age 29), Scola has known Benedict for 40 years and is close to him theologically and personally. His election might foretell what one Catholic commentator has called ”the continuation of the Benedictine papacy by other means.” Perhaps more intriguingly, Scola’s apparent willingness to spearhead the cardinal bloc wishing to thoroughly revamp the Curia probably means that reform was indeed the principal task Benedict felt unable to take on in his final years, but was equally unwilling to let fester until his death.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/general/the-italian-media-has-anointed-one-of-their-own-cardinal-angelo-scola/feed/0Five curious ways popes have left their mark on Romehttp://www.macleans.ca/culture/five-curious-ways-popes-have-left-their-mark-on-rome/
http://www.macleans.ca/culture/five-curious-ways-popes-have-left-their-mark-on-rome/#commentsTue, 12 Mar 2013 16:37:45 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=349622Papal fingerprints are everywhere, if you know where to look

The Eternal City is chock full of the Western world’s most important treasures, thanks in large part to the Catholic church’s 266 popes, who collected and commissioned masterpieces, commanded beautifying building projects and acquired art–sometimes through not-so-holy means.

The Apollo Belvedere and The Laocoön at the Vatican Museums

The papal facelifts started nearly from the get-go: The Middle Ages left Roman ruins plundered and used as pastureland. But Pope Martin V began a restoration of the city as early as AD 140; When Pope Boniface VIII proclaimed the first jubilee in 1300, thousands of pilgrims visited Rome thereby lining the papal coffers with plenty of project funding; Nicholas V began building works at both St. Peter’s and the Vatican, where he transferred his residence from the Lateran Palace and tried to slow down the plundering of ancient buildings, which despite his efforts continued well into the 16th century. But it was a member of the influencial Della Rovere family who really got the ball rolling: In 1471 Pope Sixtus IV founded the oldest public collection of art in the world when he donated his sculpture collection to the city, the nucleus of which can still be seen at the Capitoline Museum. (He also rebuilt a chapel you may have heard of that still bears his name.) Another Della Rovere family member–Pope Julius II–continued the beautifation of that chapel when he pulled Michelangelo away (kicking and screaming) from working on Julius’s own tomb. In fact, Pope Julius II made Rome the centre of the High Renaissance, by luring the likes of not only Michelangelo but also Raphael and the architect Bramante, to work on papal projects in Rome.

Julius was mad for ancient sculpture, which seemed to be turning up in everybody’s back yard during the 16th century, and he displayed his impressive collection–think The Laocoön and the Apollo Belvedere in the Vatican’s Belvedere Pavillion–helping to make the Vatican Palace home to the largest collection of ancient scultpures in the world. After a little blip during Pope Clement VII’s reign–when Rome was sacked in 1527 by German mercenary trooos–Rome’s population fell to around 30,000 inhabitants. But Pope Sixtus V, perhaps more than any other pope, came back will full pistons firing (St. Peter’s dome was completed under his watch.) And under Paul V’s eyes, the basilica was completed. Popes Urban VIII, Innocent X and Alexander VII turned Rome into the Baroque wonder that is today–think Bernini’s colonnade out front of St. Peter’s and practically every single fountain in the city’s piazzas. And while Scipione Borghese–a major patron of the arts during the 17th century–may have only been a Cardinal, his uncle was Pope Paul V. And he put his art-loving nephew in charge of the papal funds, which conveniently often ended up funding one of the largest and most impressive art collections in Europe. Paul V even went so far as to facilitate the theft of an alterpiece from Peruglia–Raphael’s Deposition, whish still hangs, along with early Caravaggios and nearly every single early marble freestanding sculpture by Bernini, in the Scipione’s Villa Borghese today.

But mapping out what treasures are where in Rome is no easy feat: For starters, antiquities have been plundered, refashioned, melted down and destroyed for centuries (three hundred tons of iron clamps once held the Colosseum’s 100,000 cubic metres of traverstene stone together but after centuries of iron looting, the stadium resembles a piece of Swiss cheese.) And as early as the reign of Emperor Constantine in the 4th century AD, antiquities were mish-mashed together creating collages of art comprised of different styles from various centuries (Think the Arch of Constantine.) There are books dedicated to detailing the minutea of it all, the exterior columns on the Pantheon, for example, come courtesy from both Baths of Nero and Domitian’s villa. But here are five off-the-beaten-track gems that you may have walked by, or on, and never realized that their unusual origins are covered in papal fingerprints.

1.Pope Urban VIII commissioned Bernini to craft an elaborate canopy, or baldachin, over the burial site of St. Peter himself inside St. Peter’s. But the structure, whose columns rise 20 metres, required a lot of bronze. Legend has it that Urban gave the green light to take it from the portico ceiling of the Pantheon. So, in 1626, 200 tons of bronze were melted down to make not only the baldachin but 80 cannons for Castel Sant’Angelo (Hadrian’s mausoleum.)

The Senate house's bronze doors at the Lateran

2. You know how some tourists can get a little persnickety outside the Baptistery in Florence where Brunelleschi’s famed bronze ‘Gates of Paradise’ hang when they remind art-adoring bystanders that the doors are reproductions? Well, same goes for the bronze doors on the facade of the Senate House in the Roman Forum. To see the real deal, make your way to San Giovanni in Laterno, the official cathedral not just of the city of Rome but also of the world. (St. Peter’s, although arguably the most grand and imposing church in Christendom, is not actually a cathedral.) The basilica, first built in the 4th century A.D. on Constantine’s orders over the site of his rival Maxentius’s army barracks–how’s that for not-so-passive-aggressive?–has been sacked, burned down, rebuilt and burned down again. But the impressive (re: enormous) set of bronze doors located under the portico are a couple thousand years old. In 1660, Pope Alexander VII decided that they’d be better suited to Rome’s first basilica rather than collecting dust in the Roman Forum.

3. Next time you’re in St. Peter’s, make a pit stop at the very start of the long nave. Then look down. You’ll see a somewhat ubiquitous-looking round piece of purple marble. Well guess who knelt down on it and was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III on Christmas day in 800 AD? Just Charlemagne, THE GUY THAT STARTED THE CAROLINGIAN RENAISSANCE AND BASICALLY UNITED ALL OF EUROPE FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE THE ROMAN EMPIREl. It’s a small piece of memorabilia that survived from the original basilica, built on Constantine’s orders in the 4th century AD over top of St. Peter’s tomb, that made its way into Baroque basilica that stands today.

4. There’s a visible passageway, or passetto, that runs on top of the old 9th century AD Vatican wall that connects Vatican City with the Castel Sant’Angelo, an impressive circular structure that started off as Emperor Hadrian’s family mausoleum in AD 139. (It’s also been a citadel, prison, fortress, castle and now, a museum.) The 800-metre fortified corridor, built in 1277 by Pope Nicholas III, allowed Pope Clement VII to escape from the Vatican to the Castel Sant’Angelo during the Sack of Rome in 1527. He took with him some 1,000 followers, including 18 bishops and 13 cardinals, to escape the mercenary troops of Charles V. As H.V. Morton recounts it in his 1957 A Traveller in Rome, “Clement VII, appalled by the fate his politics had brought upon Rome, was on his knees in St. Peter’s. At first he was resolved to dress in full pontificals and meet the enemy seated upon his throne, as Boniface VIII had waited for Sciarra Colonna two hundred years before: but as the cut-throats broke into the Hospital of S. Spirito, slaying all the patients to spread terror, and the cries of the dying and the explosion of cannon were heard on the very steps of St. Peter’s, the Pope was persuaded to take flight along the covered corridor to S. Angelo. ‘Had he stayed long enough to say three creeds,’ wrote an eyewitness, ‘he would have been taken.'”

The 'passatto' from the Vatican on the left to Castel Sant'Angelo on the right

5. Chances of any bronze artifact, let alone a bronze equestrian statue of an emperor, surviving the passage of time (and countless sacks and invasions) are slim. The Christians melted down any pagan-looking relic they could get their hands on. That’s what makes the very existence of the bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius located in the Capitoline Museum (a replica stands in the piazza, designed by Michelangelo, out front) all the more mind-boggling. It was spared because of a case of mistaken identity: everybody thought it was Constantine, the first emperor to convert to Christianity, albeit on his death bed. It is the only fully surviving bronze statue of a pre-Christian Roman emperor. The nearly two-thousand-year-old massive monument was most likely found on the Lateran Hill in AD 783 but wasn’t brought to the Capitoline Hill until Pope Paul III ordered it to happen in 1538.

Bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius at the Capitoline Museum in Rome

]]>In all the Third World pope buzz that has swirled since Pope Benedict announced his resignation a month ago, most has focussed on African or Asian papabili. Strangely little, given how South America is the most Catholic of continents, has been said about Latin America (Mexico and Central America add another 100 million to the total.) Until very recently. Suddenly, everyone is talking about Brazil’s Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer, Archbishop of Sao Paulo, the largest archdiocese in the world’s largest Catholic. Viewing his record and his lack of charismatic presence–the same knock that may prove decisive in the case of Canada’ Cardinal Marc Oullett–points to only two favourable points: the age (63) is good, and he apparently gets along splendidly with the cardinals of the Curia, the papal bureaucrats whose incompetence and worse has made Church governance among the key issues–if not the single most important one–that the cardinals will weigh in their choice for pope. By this theory, the Italians–by which Vatican waters mean the bureaucrats–know they can’t get their wish, an Italian and pro-Curia pontiff, so they’ll settle for what’s important in that combo: the pro-Curia part. (In mirror opposite, the reformers are said to be coalescing around an Italian, Milan’s Cardenal Angelo Scola, to sweeten their bitter change package.) Like every other pathway proposed–and assiduously leaked by interested parties–for any of a half-dozen papal contenders, it’s perfectly logical. Unlike most, moreover, it does actually reflect what is a serious divisive issue within the College of Cardinals. Whether the business-as-usual (with a few tweaks, of course) cardinals or the housecleaners prevail, however, will probably not turn on specific candidates, but on whether those voters–67, more than half–appointed by Benedict think the pope emeritus was hamstrung all along by his bureaucracy or by his own missteps.

]]>Top of mind for the world’s media packed into Rome is: who will win? But the real question should be: who will lose?

There’s a very good reason the first place a new pope finds himself is a small space off the Sistine Chapel called the crying room, or the room of tears.
Many new popes, upon “winning,” weep.

It is not just the weight of a new office, where the pope is tasked with shepherding the spiritual life of a billion faithful spread around the world. Or the fact he must make his first public appearance wearing red slippers. He’s also a head of state, a bishop in his own right, and depending on which example you take, a prolific traveler (John Paul II) or a prolific scholar and writer (Benedict XVI).

A former Swiss Guard (the men who protect the Holy Father), said Benedict XVI never wanted the job. “The pope is the end of your life. You lose your friends. You lose your family,” said Andreas Widmer. You’re a prisoner, he continued, confined by the walls of the Vatican.

A pope’s mornings are early, his days packed with meetings, his years packed with feasts and masses and travels. Italian journalist and Vatican watcher Andrea Tornielli called any man looking to be the next Supreme Pontiff “totally crazy.”

John Paul I may be the greatest warning. He was elected in 1978, and only managed to keep pace for one month before he died.

The papal conclave isn’t the World Cup or the Olympics. There’s no trophy at the end. But there is, perhaps, a sentence.

]]>Conventional wisdom holds that cardinal electors will always shy away from an American pababile for fear of too close a bond with the last superpower. But maybe that’s only an excuse, and what really irritates them is that unstoppable American openness with the media, a certain national problem with keeping secrets.

Then again, maybe cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York already knew he didn’t have a chance to be pope when he sent that cheerful letter to all the priests of his diocese, predicting a new pontiff by Thursday and an “inaugural mass on March 19, the feast of St. Joseph, the patron of the Church Universal, a holiday, and Father’s Day here in Italy.” He also thinks ”the gentle Roman rain” which has half-drowned the rest of us on a couple of occasions ”is a sign of the grace of the Holy Spirit coming upon us.”

The Americans have actually been a blinding ray of sunshine here, willing to answer questions and openly acknowledge problems the Church has to face; at least they were, until shut down last week by a Vatican bureacracy that encourages prelates to think twice before reponding to, ”What is your name?” In that regard, perhaps the more things change…

Early this morning an elderly cardinal, freed not just from the burden of voting but the close observation of Swiss Guards, wandered the streets near Saint Peter’s Square in full scarlet regalia, accompanied by only one young monsignor, and happily posing for photos with the the African streetsellers who stopped him. He did, however, respond to all questions about his name with, ”Espagna.” The cardinal was strangely reminiscent of an equally elderly man at the square last night, who shrugged when asked who should be pope, but had a firm opinion–written on a banner–as to what the new papal name should be: Francesco I Papa.

Cardinals attend a mass for the election of a new pope inside St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican on Tuesday, March 12, 2013. (Andrew Medichini/AP)

Though the rules for appointing a new pope have changed over the centuries, John Paul II updated them significantly on Feb. 22, 1996 with the release of “Universi Dominici Gregis” (UDG), which allowed a pope to be elected by a simple majority if no one had been elected after 12 days of voting. Benedict XVI reversed that rule in 2007 and returned to the traditional two-thirds vote. Then, six days before he retired, he amended the rules again, permitting a conclave to start early if the cardinal electors had gathered in Rome.

Conclave: Latin cum (with) and clavis (key): a room locked with a key.

During the vacancy, “cardinals are to wear the usual black cassock with piping and the red sash, with skullcap, pectoral cross and ring,” according to John Paul II’s UDG.

The day after Benedict resigned, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, 85, dean of the College of Cardinals, formally informed the cardinals that the papacy is vacant and called them to Rome.

As the electors gather in Vatican City, all cardinals, regardless of age, hold meetings called “general congregations” to discuss the challenges facing the Church and the qualities needed in the new pope. They also use the time to meet the papabile, the leading candidates. Cardinals swear an oath to keep the discussions secret.

They have the old pope’s fisherman’s ring destroyed, a tradition that harkens back to days when it was to prevent forgeries during the interregnum.

The cardinals set the date for the conclave by a simple majority vote.

Under Benedict’s change, it can begin once all the cardinal electors are present, not the previously required 15 to 20 full days after the death or resignation.

To be allowed to vote, cardinals cannot have reached their 80th birthday before the day when the Apostolic See becomes vacant. (Cardinal Lubomyr Husar of Ukraine is excluded because his 80th was two days before Benedict left.) There are 115 cardinal electors.

Prior to Benedict’s election in 2005, cardinal electors stayed in the Apostolic Palace where the pope resides and slept on cots in makeshift rooms with sheets as room dividers (anything more permanent would damage the 16th century building). John Paul II had a modern five-storey guesthouse, Domus Sanctae Marthae, built nearby in 1996 so the cardinals could sleep and pray in comfort. The 131 rooms and suites are distributed by lot. Since its upper floors can be seen by Roman neighbours, window shutters are closed and locked. It has a dining room, and five chapels.

Only specially authorized and vetted personnel, including cooks, cleaners and doctors, are allowed into the building immediately before and during the conclave.

All those non-voters allowed into the conclave area—for example, the master of papal liturgical celebration—are sworn to “strict secrecy,” promise not to bring in recording equipment and must take an oath to that effect. The penalty is automatic excommunication.

CONCLAVE BEGINS

The cardinals take part in a eucharist, ideally in the morning.

In the afternoon, they assemble in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace. Wearing “choir dress” (their formal red-cloth and white-lace outfits) and chanting Veni Creator they walk to the Sistine Chapel, where the election takes place.

Michelangelo’s masterpiece, according to the UDG, must “remain an absolutely enclosed area until the conclusion of the election, so that total secrecy may be ensured with regard to everything said or done there in any way pertaining, directly or indirectly, to the election of the supreme pontiff.” The area is swept for bugs, cameras and any other surveillance equipment.

The cardinals say a communal oath and then an individual oath to uphold the rules. The punishment for making “any form of pact, agreement, promise or other commitment of any kind” is immediate excommunication. The conclave starts.

During the election the cardinals refrain “from written correspondence and from all conversations, including those by telephone or radio, with persons who have not been duly admitted to the buildings set aside for their use,” according to UDG. The only exception is in cases of “proven and urgent necessity.” It is explicitly forbidden to “receive newspapers or periodicals of any sort, to listen to the radio or to watch television.”

They are never to reveal anything about what happens during the conclave upon punishment of ex-communication.

Cardinals can walk or be bused to the Sistine Chapel for voting. No one can approach the cardinal electors enroute.

Voting procedure

There are three phases to voting, which usually occurs twice in the morning and afternoon:

1. The ballots are prepared and distributed. Each is rectangular and the upper half bears the words, Eligo in Summum Pontificem (I elect as supreme pontiff); room is left on the bottom to write the name of the person chosen so the ballot can be folded in half. During the voting, everyone but the 115 cardinal electors must leave the Sistine Chapel. Nine of the electors are chosen by lots to act as scrutineers, Infirmarii (those who collect votes of the sick) and revisers. There are rules to have others take those positions as the voting continues.

Though traditionally the candidates are cardinals, the electors can chose anyone who is a male Catholic who has reached the age of reason, isn’t a heretic, schismatic (refuse communion with true Catholics) or “in simony” (buying or selling sacraments or Church positions).

2. Each elector holds up his folded ballot to all to see and goes to the altar, where he says, “I call as my witness Christ the Lord who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one who before God I think should be elected.” He places it in a silver and gilded bronze urn.

One of the infirmarii collects the ballots from the ill. If at the residence, then all three infirmarii collect an elector’s ballot in another urn. There are even rules if the cardinal is unable to write.

3. After everyone including the scrutineers have voted and all the ballots have been placed in the urn, the container is shaken and then opened. Each scrutineer records each vote. The third also reads the ballot choice out loud while he “pierces each one with a needle through the word Eligo and places it on a thread, so that the ballots can be more securely preserved.

After the names have been read out, the ends of the thread are tied in a knot, and the ballots thus joined together are placed in a receptacle or on one side of the table.

The revisers must double check the ballots. If no one obtains at least two-thirds of the vote on that ballot, a pope has not been elected. There are two votes in the morning and then, after a break, two more in the afternoon. Before the electors leave the chapel, the scrutineers burn the ballots in a stove installed for that purpose, along with any notes made by the cardinals. If there is no decision, chemicals are added to the fire in another stove to produce black smoke so the outside world knows that no pope has been elected.

After balloting has been unsuccessful for three days, voting can be suspended for a maximum of one day for prayer and informal discussion. Then, after another seven ballots, there is another pause. Another seven votes and another pause. Another seven votes. If there still isn’t a winner, then a Vatican version of sudden-death rules take effect. The electors’ vote is restricted to the two leading contenders as of the last ballot. Those two can’t vote for themselves. But the two-thirds rule still applies.

Election

When the two-thirds majority is reached, the cardinals invite in senior Vatican officials. Then the dean or senior cardinal asks the winner two questions on behalf of the entire college:

1. Do you accept your canonical election as supreme pontiff?

2. By what name do you wish to be called?

If the person elected is already a bishop, then he’s immediately the bishop of the Church of Rome—the pope.

The final ballots are burned, using chemicals to create white smoke so the outside world knows there is a new pope.

The conclave ends immediately. The camerlengo records the voting results, which will be given to the new pope and then sealed in an envelope and kept in the archive.

The new pope, after being dressed in papal garb in the nearby Room of Tears, is escorted to the papal apartment. The doors are opened and a senior cardinal announces to the world: “Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum: Habemus Papam” (I announce to you a great joy: we have a Pope). Then the new head of the Catholic Church appears on the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/general/the-rules-of-the-papal-conclave/feed/13Best-known Canadian around the world right now? Marc Ouellethttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/best-known-canadian-around-the-world-right-now-marc-ouellet/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/best-known-canadian-around-the-world-right-now-marc-ouellet/#commentsTue, 12 Mar 2013 11:32:34 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=359374Brian Bethune reports from Rome as the conclave begins

There’s hockey, of course, and that guy up in space, and a teenage pop star. But the best-known Canadian name around the world right now may belong to a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.

In St Peter’s Square the night before the conclave to choose a successor to Pope Benedict XVI was to begin, there were three sorts of people milling around, and the ordinary faithful were the fewest in number. The police presence was massive, large enough to be the group most at risk from nuns—easily the most aggressive drivers in Vatican City if not in Rome—flying around in tiny cars.

Most of the cops were engaged in reading their smartphones—in Toronto public safety campaigns are directed at texting-distracted drivers, here they must lose distracted pedestrians in large numbers—or keeping a bored eye on the metal detectors the cardinal electors will pass through on their way to the Sistine Chapel. But both groups were outnumbered by the media staking out prize positions, some from unexpected places, like a Korean wire service or New Delhi TV.

They’re all happy to talk to a Canadian journalist, mostly because they’re down the media pecking order—a telegenic Portuguese-speaking priest with a sizeable entourage took up serious acreage for his interview—but partly because any given Canadian just might know Cardinal Marc Ouellet.

“Your cardinal stands a chance,” exclaims Indian reporter Noupur Tiwari of NDTV, a veteran of papal conclaves—she was here in 2005 for the election of Pope Benedict XVI. Then there were only two Indian cardinals; now there are five, all of voting age. (“There’s just the one Korean,” throws in a clearly unhappy South Korean journalist, “and he’s too old.”)

Interest in India is high, continues Tiwari, because of the rising number of cardinals and Indian Catholics, now 18 million strong), a relatively new female Indian saint and Mother Teresa’s ongoing canonization process. But especially because of the widespread feeling that this might be the moment the papacy leaves European hands for the first in 1,300 years. If it does, they’ll have much bigger entourages next time around.

So much mystery surrounds the election of the next pope that it eventually captures the attention of even those among us who have absolutely no stake in papal politics. One quote, spoken by Cardinal Tom Collins, Toronto’s Archbishop, and reported by the Toronto Star near the bottom of its story this morning, sold it for me. “We were all very conscious looking around that the pope is here somewhere,” he said. “You look at all the papabile in the room and you say, ‘Oh, maybe it’s him.’ Whoever it is, he was in the room and he heard everything. And that’s a good thing.” The mystery of it all is so enrapturing.

The cardinals who elect the pope are, of course, silent about their intentions, save for secret, pre-conclave meetings with each other. Speculation is predictably rampant in Rome, where everyone has an opinion about the identity of the next pontif. And yet, as Postmedia‘s Matthew Fisher writes at the end of his story this morning, predicting the outcome of the conclave is a fool’s game. “It is almost pointless to speculate about who might be ahead and who might be trailing.”

It all sounds like the speculation that precedes a major cabinet shuffle. Except instead of a gaggle of political reporters speculating outside of Rideau Hall, over a billion people are watching. Who can tune that out? Not me.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/how-papal-politics-grab-the-attention-of-non-believers/feed/3Conclave to select new pope will begin Tuesday afternoonhttp://www.macleans.ca/general/conclave-to-select-pope-to-begin-tuesday-afternoon/
http://www.macleans.ca/general/conclave-to-select-pope-to-begin-tuesday-afternoon/#commentsFri, 08 Mar 2013 16:58:43 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=358607Cardinals will gather in a conclave to pick a new pope beginning Tuesday, March 12, the Vatican announced Friday.
“Mass will be celebrated in St. Peter’s Basilica in the morning,”…

]]>Cardinals will gather in a conclave to pick a new pope beginning Tuesday, March 12, the Vatican announced Friday.

“Mass will be celebrated in St. Peter’s Basilica in the morning,” the Vatican said in its official newsfeed Friday. “In the afternoon the cardinals will enter into the Conclave.”

The announcement comes as cardinals from around the world have been making their way to Rome after Pope Benedict XVI made the surprise announcement that he would step down, making him the first pope to abdicate his post in 600 years.

]]>QUEBEC – A Roman Catholic Church spokesman is criticizing a list that calls Canada’s Marc Cardinal Ouellet and 11 other papal candidates the ”Dirty Dozen.”

Jasmin Lemieux-Lefebvre, communications director for the church in Quebec City and a former press attache to Ouellet, said Thursday that none of the cardinals deserves such negative recognition.

The U.S.-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests put Ouellet on the list because it said he refused to meet with sex-abuse victims. Ouellet recently told the CBC he met with victims during a visit to Ireland.

The ”Dirty Dozen” reference comes from a 1967 film of the same name that features 12 convicts assigned to a raid on a German-filled chateau during the Second World War.

Lemieux-Lefebvre was particularly upset because Ouellet and the 11 other papal candidates on the list are being associated with a crude word that is used in the movie’s translated French title.

He told a news conference in Quebec City he has fielded many calls from people who were deeply hurt by the association.

”To hear the name of Marc Cardinal Ouellet associated with that word affected a lot of people,” said Lemieux-Lefebvre, who denied being a ”cheerleader” for his former boss.

”None of the 12 cardinals on the black list deserves to be called that.”

David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, was quick to make an apology for the translation issue.

“We sincerely apologize for offending anyone by using the phrase ‘dirty dozen’,” Clohessy said in a statement Thursday evening.

“We are a staff of three abuse victims working very hard to protect kids, help victims, expose wrongdoers and deter cover ups in a huge, powerful, global institutions. We simply are incapable of monitoring how a 40- year- old movie title translates into multiple languages and slang expression.

“We hope Catholics and citizens, in Canada and elsewhere, will focus on what we believe really matters.”

Ouellet’s former press attache also urged the media to no longer discuss the case of Paul Ouellet, a younger brother of the cardinal who was sentenced to 15 months’ community service a few years ago for assaults against two minors in the 1980s and early 1990s.

”The cardinal’s brother has paid his debt to society after abuse committed on minors,” he said.

”How can this affect the candidacy, or I would say the personal, professional and spiritual qualities of Marc Cardinal Ouellet? In no way whatsoever.

”It’s been talked about. I think we’ve got to turn the page.”

In the end, though, Lemieux-Lefebvre doesn’t believe all the negative talk will have any impact on Ouellet’s papal aspirations.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/church-spokesman-critical-of-dirty-dozen-list-of-papal-candidates/feed/1Cardinals play hardballhttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/cardinals-play-hardball-2/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/cardinals-play-hardball-2/#commentsFri, 01 Mar 2013 01:00:00 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=355222The ever-feverish season of Papal electioneering is already under way with new leaks every day

On Feb. 22, 12 days after Pope Benedict XVI announced his plan to resign, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, publicly stated that he thought Roman Catholic clergy should have the right to marry. The very next day, news leaked that O’Brien was under investigation for “inappropriate”—read sexual—advances to four young priests three decades ago; the day after that, O’Brien, 74, revealed he had already secretly resigned his archbishopric back in November (on the newly popular grounds of age and ill health) and that Benedict had just decided that Feb. 25 was a good day to put it into immediate effect. O’Brien, who remains a cardinal, added that he wouldn’t be attending the conclave to elect Benedict’s successor.

Coincidence? Not according to seasoned Vatican watchers. Having spent years trying to peer within an organizational structure opaque enough to make the old Soviet Kremlin look like a citadel of light, they are almost universally convinced that Vatican insiders could run rings around that chump Machiavelli. But it’s actually difficult to construct a coherent conspiracy theory around O’Brien—his militant defence of Catholic sexual teaching on abortion and same-sex marriage makes him hard to portray as a reformer brought down by scheming conservatives.

Yet O’Brien’s own well-publicized remarks on ending celibacy were clearly designed to push Catholicism in a direction he wanted it to go during one of the rare, between-popes times when the Church is capable of relatively sudden and sharp turns. The possibilities seem more open-ended than ever, leading into the most unpredictable papal election in centuries. And so, with no clear front-runner, far more time than usual for political manoeuvring, leaks springing, rumours flying and cardinals openly jostling for position, the ever-feverish season of papal electioneering is already under way.

O’Brien was far from the only Church insider weighing in, openly or anonymously, on what ought to be done. Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, for years widely considered the leading African papabile or papal contender, indicated his agreement with his many admirers when he told a British newspaper that he’d cheerfully accept the Church’s top job “if it’s the will of God.” (Oddsmakers no longer reckon Turkson’s chances very highly: not only has the College of Cardinals always frowned on blatant political campaigning, the cardinal’s subsequent remarks that Africa had been spared much clerical sex abuse because of the continent’s “taboo” against homosexuality offended a whole other raft of Catholics.) Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, a Vatican diplomat, confessed to a reporter he wouldn’t vote for anyone like himself, because the Church needs “a pastor of souls”; in other words, a pope more like John Paul II and less like Benedict XVI.

At times the princes of the Church have been less than gracious with one another. Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne, when describing his ideal pope to a German newspaper, added, as an insouciant non-sequitur, that in 2009 a group of cardinals had urged Benedict to fire his secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, for incompetence—a shot directed at the ham-fisted secretary’s electoral prospects. In that regard, media reports that Canada’s Marc Ouellet can put his fellow prelates to sleep with his uninspiring orations seem positively benign. Even so, Ouellet has to face open derision at the continued decline of the Quebec Church, and more quiet references to his brother, Paul, a former teacher who not only pleaded guilty in 2009 to 20-year-old sexual offences against two teenage girls, but took out a newspaper ad to explain the crimes weren’t really his fault.

If all that seems like standard hardball politics, the leaks—like O’Brien’s outing—bring a nastier edge. Whatever the motives behind it, one of its effects will be O’Brien’s absence from the conclave and the fresh impetus that will give to American Catholics attempting to stop Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony—under fire for covering up the crimes of clerical child sex abusers during the 1980s—from attending. O’Brien’s recusal is a blow to Mahony’s main rationale for going to Rome. No cardinal has ever before willingly abandoned his “main duty,” according to historian Ambrogio Piazzoni, vice-prefect of the Vatican library: “The thing that characterizes a cardinal is to be an elector of the pope.” Now the precedent has been set.

The real pre-conclave bombshell, however, came in the form of a Feb. 21 story in the respected Italian newspaper La Repubblica containing details of the report three senior cardinals made to Benedict about the so-called “Vatileaks” scandal—a damaging leak, as it were, about a previous damaging leak. Vatileaks—its name a play on Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks—broke open in January 2012, as secret Vatican documents appeared in the Italian media seemingly revealing the return of the Renaissance papacy, complete with internal power struggles over efforts to establish greater financial transparency, especially to comply with new international laws dealing with money laundering. One memo claimed the recently fired president of the Vatican bank exhibited “psychopathological dysfunction.” But the headline-grabber was the revelation that a mafioso was accepted for burial in a basilica beside popes after his widow paid a $400,000 bribe to officials. The leaks were traced to Benedict’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, though many observers riveted by the intra-bureaucracy battle understandably doubt that the butler did it all on his own.

Just as the original horror show was fading from the news, came La Repubblica’s report. The newspaper said the cardinals reporting to the pope identified factions within the bureaucracy, including one “united by sexual orientation.” They added that some officials had been subject to “external influence” from laymen with whom they had links of a “worldly nature,” universally read as a reference to blackmail. For most media, the leak torqued an explosive financial corruption story into yet another sensational Church sex scandal, the probable aim of the leakers.

That idea, however, is hardly likely to fly with the cardinal electors, many of whom think Vatican governance is in a very real state of crisis. For all the Church’s long-term worldwide challenges, the leaks and innuendo may turn goverance into the decisive issue in selecting the next pope. That would reshuffle the papabili deck once again. After 45 years of popes whose main interests—worldwide evangelization and combatting European secularism—led them to neglect the bureaucracy, the cardinals may opt for someone to clean the stables. The question of nationality, muted in the talk that divided papabili between First and Third World candidates, would take on a new importance. Will the cardinals want an Italian pope, on the theory that in dealing with an Italian-dominated bureaucracy, he would know where the bodies are buried? Or will an Italian be the last man they would want? Assuming, of course, that a new set of leaks—by now, almost expected on a daily basis—doesn’t set the election on yet another course.

Pope Benedict XVI

The helicopter taking Pope Benedict XVI to Castel Gandolfo leaves the Vatican in Rome, Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013. Shortly before 5 p.m. on Thursday, Pope Benedict left the Apostolic palace inside the Vatican for the last time as pontiff, headed to the helipad at the top of the hill in the Vatican gardens and flew to the papal retreat at Castel Gandolfo south of Rome. There, at 8 p.m. sharp, Benedict will become the first pontiff in 600 years to resign. (Gregorio Borgia/AP)

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]]>http://www.macleans.ca/general/photos-pope-benedict-xvi-prepares-to-step-down/feed/0Pope Benedict XVI issues final thankshttp://www.macleans.ca/general/pope-benedict-xvi-issues-thanks-in-final-address-to-public/
http://www.macleans.ca/general/pope-benedict-xvi-issues-thanks-in-final-address-to-public/#commentsWed, 27 Feb 2013 13:34:45 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=354529'I have had moments of joy and light, but also moments that haven't been easy'

The pope has delivered a catechism lesson every Wednesday, but this message took on a personal tone, rather than teaching a lesson about the Catholic Church.

“I was deeply grateful for the understanding, support and prayers of the many of you, not only in Rome, but around the world,” he said. “The decision I have made after much prayer is the fruit of a serene trust in God’s will and the deep love of Christ’s church.

“I will continue to accompany the church with my prayers and ask each of you to pray for me, and for the new pope.”

He also addressed the difficulties of his position during his eight years as pope. “I have had moments of joy and light, but also moments that haven’t been easy … moments of turbulent seas and rough winds,” he said.

Part of those difficulties may have been around privacy. Speaking in Italian, the pontiff told the crowd that the pope “belongs always and forever to everyone, to the whole church.” But, he said he will not make public appearances after his resignation.

(Alessandra Tarantino/AP)

An estimated 150,000 people gathered to hear his final address, with many holding banners reading “Grazie!” and “Thank You.”

After his address Pope Benedict used his open-sided car, the pope-mobile, to make his way through the crowd in the square, stopping to bless children along the way.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/general/pope-benedict-xvi-issues-thanks-in-final-address-to-public/feed/1Jean-Claude Cardinal Turcotte says Canadian pope a possibilityhttp://www.macleans.ca/news/jean-claude-cardinal-turcotte-says-canadian-pope-a-possibility/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/jean-claude-cardinal-turcotte-says-canadian-pope-a-possibility/#commentsWed, 27 Feb 2013 09:29:00 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=354499MONTREAL – Quebec’s other cardinal — Montreal’s populist former archbishop — thinks locals would certainly be happy if one of their own became the new pontiff.
Jean-Claude Cardinal Turcotte kept…

]]>MONTREAL – Quebec’s other cardinal — Montreal’s populist former archbishop — thinks locals would certainly be happy if one of their own became the new pontiff.

Jean-Claude Cardinal Turcotte kept his voting intentions to himself as he prepared to depart for Rome on Tuesday, although he said he’d be proud if Marc Cardinal Ouellet emerged as the new head of the Roman Catholic Church.

“We would be proud to have a pope from Quebec and the candidacy of Cardinal Ouellet is a very important one because he’s very well known around the world,” Turcotte said of the former archbishop of Quebec City.

Turcotte is among the select group of cardinals who will participate in the conclave to choose a replacement for Pope Benedict XVI.

The Pope steps down officially on Thursday and no specific date has been set for the beginning of the vote. Turcotte said it would be ideal to have the new one in place before Holy Week — the week before Easter.

Turcotte, viewed as a relative populist who was more in touch with the masses during his time as archbishop of Montreal, told reporters he doesn’t know if the new pope will move the church in a different direction.

He was reluctant to define a shift in terms of the “left” or “right” but said it was clear there would be divisions between socially progressive and more conservative-minded elements.

Ouellet has long been cast as a small-c conservative, but Turcotte says both sides are important to the church. He also said other factors play into the decision.

“The first quality of the man we’re going to choose will be his spiritual life,” Turcotte said.

“The pope is not a prime minister or a union leader. He’s a spiritual man and it’s important he has some human qualities, but it’s very important that he have very good faith and receives the Holy Spirit in his governing of the church.”

Questioned about some of the topics confronting the church, such as accepting married priests or the issue of same-sex marriage, Turcotte said church doctrine has long been set and doesn’t easily change, even if public opinion does.

But he acknowledged the church has certain “hard attitudes that perhaps need to soften.” Turcotte said he’d be open to discussing allowing priests to marry.

He also said that while civil unions of homosexuals may be acceptable, recognizing gay marriage or adoption is more problematic, as heated debates in France have recently demonstrated. He added that the church, on this subject, has a position that cannot change easily.

Robert Dennis, a Queen’s University history professor who specializes in the modern Vatican, says the next pope is unlikely to implement drastic change.

“By in large, whoever is elected is likely to be conservative,” said Dennis. “Whether they are ‘as’ conservative, it’s really the degree more than anything else.”

Turcotte acknowledged it’s very possible there could be a first non-European pontiff and that Ouellet isn’t the only possible candidate.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen — I don’t know,” Turcotte said. He (Ouellet) is not the only one and there are other cardinals who would be very good.

“But who will win? I don’t know.”

Bookmakers and Vatican observers consider Ouellet among the favourites. The native of La Motte, Que., is head of the powerful Congregation for Bishops, which vets bishop nominations worldwide.

Dennis doesn’t believe Ouellet can win on the first round, but could emerge as a consensus candidate if two camps form along European and Latin American lines.

“The most likely option is to look to Europe or to look to Latin America, and it’s going to require the European cardinals themselves to concede,” Dennis said.

“The College of Cardinals is a European, Italian institution and moving out of Europe will take their general will.”

In total, three Canadians will have a vote on the next pope — Turcotte, Ouellet and Thomas Cardinal Collins, the archbishop of Toronto.

Before departing for Rome last weekend, Collins said he was keeping an open mind about the qualities the next pope should have.

Ouellet hasn’t spoken publicly since the Pope’s announcement he was stepping down.

Turcotte noted that lobbying for the pontiff job is strictly forbidden and comes with excommunication if a cardinal is caught campaigning.

One of 115 cardinals under the age of 80 who are expected to vote, Turcotte was considered a long-shot contender for the papal post in 2005, when Pope John Paul II passed away.

Cardinals will meet before the conclave and Turcotte says the discussion is likely to centre on problems facing the church — notably the erosion of the clergy in North America and Europe as well as the scandals that continue to plague the institution.

Turcotte, who retired last March, is participating in his second conclave. He said he wasn’t surprised to be returning to Rome this time as Pope Benedict, 85, had said he would step down if his health didn’t permit him to continue.

Turcotte said he is looking forward to an audience with the outgoing Pope on Thursday.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/jean-claude-cardinal-turcotte-says-canadian-pope-a-possibility/feed/0British Cardinal Keith O’Brien resigns amid scandal, conclave changes announcedhttp://www.macleans.ca/general/british-cardinal-keith-obrien-resigns-amid-scandal-conclave-changes-announced/
http://www.macleans.ca/general/british-cardinal-keith-obrien-resigns-amid-scandal-conclave-changes-announced/#commentsMon, 25 Feb 2013 14:50:29 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=353850British cardinal Keith O’Brien has been forced to resign early, in the days before top members of the Catholic Church will gather in Rome to choose a new Pope to…

]]>British cardinal Keith O’Brien has been forced to resign early, in the days before top members of the Catholic Church will gather in Rome to choose a new Pope to replace Pope Benedict XVI.

O’Brien’s decision to vacate his position as leader of Scottish Catholic Church comes after allegations of “inappropriate conduct,” towards other priests in the 1980s, conduct which he denies.

“The former priest claims Cardinal O’Brien made an inappropriate approach to him in 1980, after night prayers, when he was a seminarian at St Andrew’s College, Drygrange,” reports BBC News.

O’Brien was already set to resign on Nov. 13, 2012. In a statement, O’Brien said: “The Holy Father has now decided that my resignation will take effect today, 25 February 2013, and that he will appoint an apostolic administrator to govern the archdiocese in my place until my successor as archbishop is appointed.”

The former leader of the Scottish Catholic Church also used his statement to offer an apology. “Looking back over my years of ministry: For any good I have been able to do, I thank God. For any failures, I apologise to all whom I have offended,” O’Brien said.

Notably, this means that Britain will not have a representative present when cardinals gather to choose a new pope after Pope Benedict XVI’s surprise resignation earlier in February. Benedict XVI gave his final Sunday mass on Feb. 24 and his last day as pope will be Feb. 28.

Benedict XVI announced charges to the conclave process Monday, which mean that cardinals will no longer have to wait for 15 days after his resignation to choose a new pope.

]]>Thousands of worshippers gathered in St. Peter’s Square this morning for Pope Benedict XVI’s final public blessing.

“We thank God for the sun he has given us,” Benedict said as the clouds cleared during his appearance.

The Pope, who will vacate the papacy on Feb. 28, said he is not abandoning the church. “The Lord is calling me to climb onto the mountain, to dedicate myself even more to prayer and meditation,” he told the crowd. “If God asks this of me, it is precisely because I can continue to serve her with the same dedication and the same love I have shown so far.”

In a photo provided by the Vatican newspaper, Pope Benedict XVI delivers his blessing during his last Angelus noon prayer. Benedict XVI said he is retiring to spend his final years in prayer. (L'Osservatore Romano, ho, AP)

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/general/pope-benedict-xvi-the-lord-is-calling-me-to-climb-onto-the-mountain/feed/26Toronto’s St. Michael’s Choir School set to perform for the new popehttp://www.macleans.ca/news/torontos-st-michaels-choir-school-set-to-perform-for-the-new-pope/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/torontos-st-michaels-choir-school-set-to-perform-for-the-new-pope/#commentsThu, 21 Feb 2013 17:54:20 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=353081TORONTO – A Canadian choir school is set to perform in April for the newly installed Pope.
Toronto’s St. Michael’s Choir School is expected to be among the first to…

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/torontos-st-michaels-choir-school-set-to-perform-for-the-new-pope/feed/0Cardinal Marc Ouellet: The Canadian who could be popehttp://www.macleans.ca/society/life/the-canadian-who-could-be-the-next-pope-2/
http://www.macleans.ca/society/life/the-canadian-who-could-be-the-next-pope-2/#commentsMon, 18 Feb 2013 18:13:00 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=350246Brian Bethune on the papal contenders

Maclean’s writer Brian Bethune is in Rome for the conclave. Watch Macleans.ca for his reports.

For all his forewarning, Pope Benedict XVI, whose eight-year pontificate has been one long series of surprising moments, managed to stun the world once again. And once the Roman Catholic Church absorbed the news that its supreme pontiff was abdicating—an announcement fitly followed, only hours later, by a bolt of lightning striking the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica—it was clear that Benedict had set the stage for the most wildly unpredictable papal election in centuries.

It’s never been easy to guess in advance how 100 or so men, huddled in the Sistine Chapel under Michelangelo’s famous ceiling, would vote. Now, the uncertain effects of the Church’s changing demographics, the protracted lead time to the electoral conclave, the precedent of the resignation itself and the unsettling presence of an ex-pope responsible for elevating to the College of Cardinals many of the same men who will choose his successor, have sent Vatican watchers scrambling. And as they try to reassess their established ranks of papabiles—literally, “pope-ables,” those reckoned to stand an electoral chance—only one name seems to emerge in every serious list’s top three: Canada’s Cardinal Marc Ouellet, former archbishop of Quebec City and now, as prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, one of the most powerful men in the Church.

Born in 1944 in La Motte, a tiny town in western Quebec’s Abitibi region where his 90-year-old mother still lives, Ouellet is a major figure in the Canadian church. And not simply because of his Vatican position, although being responsible for vetting for the pope the appointments of more than 5,000 bishops around the world certainly doesn’t hurt. Among his fellow Catholics, even those who deplore his often contentious battles with secular Quebecers, there is a deep-set appreciation of his spirituality and personal qualities. Michael Higgins, a Canadian now teaching at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn., and no fan of hidebound conservatives, recalls encountering the cardinal a few years ago at a progressive francophone church in New Brunswick, “where the priest allows women at the altar and there’s dancing and so on. I thought, ‘Well, this will be an interesting clash of cultures,’ but the conservative cardinal got right into the swing of things, interacting naturally, like a parish priest, with the congregants. There is considerable depth to Ouellet.” The cardinal, Higgins says, is no careerist, but—using a term of high Catholic praise—“a prayerful man.” Adds Msgr. Frederick Dolan, Opus Dei’s Montreal-based regional vicar for Canada, “Any time I meet him, I think he’d make a great pope.”

Outside the Church, though, Ouellet has often been a polarizing figure. He has held proudly to the tenets of Quebec’s arch-conservative past, decades after the province itself has moved on. It’s no surprise that non-Catholics see him as an anachronism in his native province—home to liberal abortion laws, laissez-faire sexual mores and the country’s largest percentage of unmarried couples. What marks Ouellet is his willingness—glee, even, for some critics—at expressing his disapproval, a tendency that endeared him to Benedict, a personal friend, and the Vatican’s conservatives.

In May 2010, while speaking at a conference of the pro-life group Quebec Life Coalition, Ouellet said he was against abortion in any instance, including rape. “Taking the life of an innocent is always a crime, morally,” he said. “This creature is not responsible for what happens to him; it’s the rapist who’s responsible.There is already a victim. Does there need to be another?”

Ouellet’s reductionist argument suggesting a rape victim, in getting an abortion, was guilty of murder, sparked a month of near-unanimous condemnation in Quebec media. Members of the then-Liberal government and the Parti Québécois opposition competed to denounce the cardinal. The president of the province’s women’s rights association said Ouellet’s words were “profoundly offensive” and “an insult to human intelligence.” A La Pressecolumnist wrote how the “fundamentalist” Ouellet was also against euthanasia, and that he hoped the cardinal “dies after a long and painful sickness.”

Yet the cardinal didn’t shy away from his comments. Far from it. “I met him three weeks after he made the comments, after he endured that public lynching,” says Quebec Life Coalition president Georges Buscemi. “He was like a giddy schoolboy at what his comment had provoked, the hysteria it caused. He reminded me of a kid who had thrown a rock through a window. Like, ‘Uh oh, what did I do?’ He wasn’t quite like that, but almost.”

For his part, Montreal Archbishop Christian Lépine, whom Ouellet helped appoint in March 2012, said Ouellet’s words about abortion simply reflect the Church’s beliefs. “In the Bible, St. Paul says that you must convey the teaching of Jesus Christ in full, with all its implications, without cutting it into pieces,” Lépine tells Maclean’s, “even if it’s hard to take for some.” Less than a month after his comments, Benedict appointed Ouellet to head the Congregation for Bishops—a position that has meant he’s already left a long-lasting mark on the Quebec Church. Since 2010, the cardinal has had a hand in the appointment of six new bishops and three auxiliary bishops there.

Ouellet’s background is steeped in the values and outlook of Quebec before the liberalizing wave of the Quiet Revolution in the 1960s. Karol Wojtyla, the man who became Pope John Paul II, was an adept soccer player. Ouellet’s game was hockey. “He was a forward, he scored a lot, and when he got the puck he knew what to do with it,” says Father Jacques D’Arcy, who attended Montreal’s Grand Séminaire with Ouellet. Today, D’Arcy is the provincial superior of the Society of the Priests of Saint-Sulpice, the continent’s oldest priestly order, of which Ouellet is a member. The cardinal, D’Arcy says, was never shy about promoting the bedrock Catholic beliefs into which he was born, even as the province itself was abandoning them.

Ouellet left Quebec to teach philosophy at the Sulpician college in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1970. After a stint in Rome and another in Colombia, he returned to Montreal as a professor of philosophy at the Grand Séminaire in 1976, when the province’s secular rejection of the Catholic Church was at its peak. This pro-gay marriage, pro-euthanasia, pro-choice “new” Quebec, D’Arcy says, “profoundly hurts him, and one of his preoccupations when he was in Montreal was how to reintroduce the principles of the Gospel here. Fundamentally, French Canadians are very Catholic, but there was an abandonment of faith. People lost the substance of the Gospel, the sense of life.”

Ouellet’s solution was to speak out, loudly. Ordained a bishop in Rome in 2001 and appointed archbishop of Quebec City in 2002, his first public move was to call for a return of catechism to Quebec’s classrooms. Quebecers, he told a journalist not long before Pope John Paul II appointed him cardinal in 2003, have a “crass ignorance” of religious matters. By instructing Catholic doctrine to a generation of lapsed Catholics, D’Arcy says, Ouellet was trying “to save our culture by returning to the principles of Christianity.”

In 2005, Ouellet publicly denounced the Liberal government’s gay-marriage bill, calling it a “threat to religious freedom.” He further condemned divorce, the ordination of female clergy and the practice of “collective absolution”—confession for an audience, essentially. Collective absolution was part of the wave of changes inspired by the Second Vatican Council in an attempt to make the church more approachable. Ouellet, a supporter of the council, nonetheless drew the line at the open airing of sins. Such a thing, he said, must be done in private, with only a priest and God as witnesses. In 2007, when the province was at the height of its crisis over so-called “reasonable accommodations”—what compromises should be made for different religions and cultures in Quebec society—Quebecers, largely allergic to the worship of their own deity, didn’t have much time for anyone worshipping others.

It’s not surprising that Ouellet took a different tack. In a public statement, the cardinal deplored the elimination of religion from Quebec’s public sphere. “Quebec’s real problem is the spiritual void created by a religious and cultural rupture, a collective amnesia, that has caused a crisis in families and education, that has left its citizens disorientated, unmotivated, prone to instability and stuck to transient, superficial values.”

Archbishop Lépine says he was heartened by Ouellet’s declaration. “No one should have religion forced on them, but when you go to the point of excluding religion, I think you’re going too far. It was a declaration to all Christians to live their faith in all its aspects and convictions,” he says.

In an interview with L’actualité in 2008, Ouellet said his declarations, like the one at the reasonable-accommodation commission, were part of his strategy to re-engage his straying flock. “In the context where we were discussing all matters of religion in Quebec, there was a need for a good smack to wake up the Catholics,” he said. And for all the criticism from secularist Quebecers, Ouellet’s penchant for preaching rock-ribbed Catholic values has had results that have heartened the Church, according to Father D’Arcy. “There’s been an uptick in the number of seminary students from Quebec in the last few years”—75 at last count at Petit Séminaire diocésain de Québec, which Ouellet founded in 2008.

All of this—the fearlessness, the championing of Catholic identity, and the results—are key factors in Ouellet’s electoral prospects. But other cardinals can claim much the same—and burgeoning numbers. On the streets of Rome, natives and foreign-born Catholics are championing a wide variety of candidates. Or simple wish lists, such as that of Betty D’Eletto, sales manager at Savelli Arte e Tradizione, a massive emporium of stamps, religious statuettes and ornate rosaries, located a stone’s throw from St. Peter’s Square. She’s hoping for an American pope, she tells a Maclean’s correspondent, so that “more rich American tourists will travel to Rome,” and buy her goods. Sales have suffered under Benedict, a sales associate complains, adding that tourists still seek medals commemorating Pope John Paul II. “I say I don’t have that one—but I have one with Benedict. And they say: ‘Oh no, I don’t want it!’ ”

The feeling that the new pontiff may be, and perhaps should be, a non-Italian is widespread among Romans met on the street, in marked contrast to the situation in 1978, when a 456-year string of Italian popes was broken by John Paul’s election. Msgr. Kevin Irwin, a professor of liturgical studies and sacramental theology at the Catholic University of America, recalls the silence when the name was announced. “Everyone was expecting an Italian name; all the Italians knew the candidates by first name. The person beside me turned and said: “Is he black? Is he from Africa?” I said, “No, he’s from Poland.” This time, Catholics are scanning more distant horizons, with African and Asian names—such as Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines and Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana—joining Ouellet’s.

Pope Benedict brought all this energy into existence on Feb. 10, when, speaking to a gathering of cardinals, he announced his resignation, effective at 8 p.m. Rome time on Feb. 28. Echoing almost everyone, but probably unaware of the actual lightning strike at St. Peter’s, Toronto’s Cardinal Thomas Collins called it “a bolt from the blue.” But in retrospect, at least, the 85-year-old pontiff had been signalling his intentions so clearly for more than three years that it’s likely only his sudden death could have prevented him from stepping down.

No one paid much attention in 2009 when Benedict visited the tomb of his predecessor, Pope Celestine V, who reigned 700 years ago and is best remembered today as the last pope to voluntarily resign. The visit was intriguing enough, but what happened next was extraordinary, according to George Ferzoco, a lecturer in the department of religion and theology at Britain’s University of Bristol. “Benedict said some prayers and then he removed from his vestments his pallium (a woolen scarf), one of the greatest symbols of the pope’s authority and power, and placed it on Celestine’s casket and left it there. He was expressing solidarity.” A year later, Benedict—who now struggles to walk even moderate distances and has a pacemaker—was even more forthright when he remarked to a German journalist that papal abdication for reasons of health was a valid option.

This was why he was resigning, Benedict told the cardinals that morning. His ministry demanded “strength of mind and body, strength which, in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfil [my office].” Among those with analogous responsibilities, Benedict’s reasoning and decision invoked sympathetic acceptance, as national leaders, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Angela Merkel, chancellor of Benedict’s native Germany, paid tribute to the pope.

Within the Church, too, many shared the admiration expressed by Cardinal Collins and others. “I was astonished, although I suppose I shouldn’t have been,” the cardinal told Maclean’s. “The pope made the humble judgment that the present situation needs more strength than he has. It was an admirable decision.” The timing was particularly brilliant, both personally and for the Church, adds Opus Dei’s Dolan. “I believe Pope Benedict was thinking he has so much he wants to say stored up in his noggin and only so much time to get it down on paper. Now we will have a new pope by Easter, meaning the cry of Habemus Papam (We have a pope) may well go up during the dramatic rites of Holy Week. Springtime, too.”

But not everyone agreed with Collins and Dolan. Anura Gurugé, a non-Catholic computer analyst who runs a New Hampshire-based website dedicated to gathering in a single site the “dynamics, politics, traditions and precedents” that will factor into the next papal election, says his inbox is already clogged by emails from angry traditionalists who believe resignation is never an option. “One began with ‘Christ did not come down from the cross when the going got tough,’” Gurugé says, a sentiment he shares. “This was not a good day for the Catholic Church; Benedict’s resignation has confirmed the suspicion he was a weak pope who only looked strong earlier in his career because he served under a strong pope, John Paul II.” That may spark a reaction against what the cardinals perceive as Benedict’s wishes, he argues.

The anger comes from the unsettling novelty of the resignation, according to Robert Gahl, an American priest and professor of ethics at Rome’s Pontifical University of the Holy Cross. “You have to understand,” says Gahl, “that despite the earlier papal resignations, voluntary and forced, this is the first time that this exactly has ever happened—the first time in the history of a Church in which virtually everything has already happened—a fully active, fully acknowledged and accepted pope leaving his position.”

Gahl, who respects Benedict’s decision, adds that many traditionalist Catholics “see the pope as a father, and you can’t resign from being a father.”

Michael Higgins, for his part, sees more questions than answers. “What happens to a retired pope? With so many of the cardinal electors raised by him, will they be thinking of his wishes? Is Benedict looking for a continuation of his papacy through another man? Think about it: if Pius XII had resigned, would John XXIII have called the Second Vatican Council?” A good question: if the felt presence of Pius had moved the cardinals away from their choice of the liberalizing John XXIII, it is very possible that the council, and all the momentous changes it brought to the life of the Church, would have never been.

The pope is dead (figuratively), long live the pope. If there is uncertainty about the rightness of Benedict’s action, there’s widespread agreement that it will play some kind of role in choosing the next pope, becoming one more complicating factor in a watershed papal conclave.

Massive change is inexorably creeping up on the Church. When Syrian-born Pope Gregory III died in 741, most of the Middle East and North Africa, once Christian heartlands, had already passed under Islamic control. For most of the next millennium, as the Anglo-French Catholic apologist Hilaire Belloc put it early last century, “the faith is Europe and Europe is the faith.” With Gregory’s death more than 12 centuries ago, the papacy passed into European hands to stay, seemingly forever.

But the Roman Catholic Church’s centre of gravity has been shifting to the global South for a century. In 1900, about 200 million of the world’s 266 million Roman Catholics lived in Europe, the U.S. or Canada. Most of the rest, 53 million, were in Latin America, leaving only a relative handful scattered across Asia and Africa. There are now about 1.1 billion Catholics, two-thirds of them outside Europe and North America. In parish churches from European hamlets to small-town Canada, young clergy hail from India and Africa. In Nigeria, the remarkable priest factory that is Bigard Memorial Seminary has an enrolment of 1,100, equivalent to a fifth of the seminarians in the entire U.S. Catholicism, in fact, is exploding in Africa as nowhere else, where more than 150 million of the continent’s 800 million people are members of the Church. What Catholic writer John Allen calls in The Future Church the “most rapid, and sweeping, demographic transformation of Roman Catholicism in its 2,000-year-old history” will soon mean that only one in five Catholics will be a non-Hispanic Caucasian. Soon, perhaps after next month’s conclave, the man at the top will reflect this new reality.

But change percolates slowly in vast hierarchical structures. Half of the 117 cardinals eligible to vote for the new pontiff are still European, and many more come from elsewhere in the developed world. And there are more subtle factors in play as well. “Benedict has set the bar high for his successors,” says Gahl, “in terms of intellectual power and physical vigour.” Benedict’s precedent, Gahl believes, will force the electors toward younger candidates. Although Gahl declined to specifically link that notion with any of the more commonly suggested papabiles such as Milan’s Cardinal Angelo Scola, 71, or Ouellet, 68, computer analyst Gurugé didn’t hesitate. Benedict’s resignation may have marked a bad day for Catholicism but, Gurugé adds cheerfully, “it was good news for your guy.”

At 68, Ouellet might once have been seen as too young, as Gurugé puts it: “What if he lives to 90? Now that Benedict has introduced the idea of term limits, one of his major drawbacks is gone.” The other remains: he’s not Italian. “The Italians have had 34 years of foreigners in what is, after all, an Italian bishopric. They will try to get it back.” But they no longer have the weight in the college to do it alone, Gurugé adds, and if the other Europeans think it’s time to move from their home continent, they may be happiest with a baby step—meaning to another developed nation. Given that he feels no American has a chance—“it’s the opposite of the fears about J.F.K., that the Vatican would have an outpost in the White House; this time, it’s that the White House would run the Vatican”—that sentiment, too, would favour Ouellet.

For all their ethnic diversity, the cardinal electors, each raised to his position by Benedict or John Paul, are ideologically in sync with one another, focused on restoring and strengthening traditional Catholic identity. No one in the worldwide Church has poured more effort into that than the former archbishop of Quebec, and with the political winds blowing at his back, Cardinal Marc Ouellet may well sail into history.

Papal contenders

Some are far closer to the Roman Catholic Church’s highest office than others, but serious candidates are now found worldwide

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, 68

Country: Austria

The liberal standard bearer’s chances may have disappeared after a virtual revolt among lower clergy

Cardinal Marc Ouellet, 68

Country: Canada

The powerful Vatican official, admired by all Church factions and not a European, is the only man to appear in every top-three list

Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, 55

Country: Philippines

Once too young to be considered, the Church’s rising Asian star has suddenly become a dark horse possibility

Cardinal Peter Turkson, 64

Country: Ghana

A combination of the right age, Vatican experience and a charismatic personality have made him the top African possibility

Cardinal Angelo Scola, 71

Country: Italy

The archbishop of Milan, a theologian specializing in human sexuality and bioethics, is the leading Italian candidate.

Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, 70

Country: Honduras

Despite his conservative position on sexual and gender issues, his economic stances may prove too leftist for Western cardinals

George Ferzoco is betting on a sainthood. Some time in the 2060s, predicts the Bristol University theology lecturer, the man who was once Pope Benedict XVI will be canonized: declared a saint by the Catholic Church.

Ever since Benedict gave Vatican Cardinals’ his three weeks notice, journalists and insiders have been busy imagining what his imminent retirement will look like.

Several Holy See City press conferences later, and key questions linger: Where will the Pope live out his final hours? And how? What shall we call him? And who gets to keep his papal swag?

What we know is that, promptly upon abdicating, the Pope will skip town—travelling to Castel Gandolfo: a papal retreat in the hills south of Rome. Benedict is said to like the gardens, and a Madonna statue that rests near the goldfish pond.

The official word is that Benedict will then return to the Vatican, to live in a monastery that is currently being renovated—though some aren’t buying it. One Monsignor, who did not want his name used, told Maclean’s that this was unlikely: “I think he will live out his final days in Castel Gondolfo… It would be too hard for him to return to the Vatican: to walk around in the afternoons, to be a former pope.”

As to the other questions: How? The Pope’s brother thinks that Benedict will simply repose—that he will not “write any new works.” Swag? A Vatican spokesperson confirms that Benedict’s papal ring, an emblem of holy authority, will be destroyed. Title? Reports are conflicting, though “Pope emeritus,” “Bishop of Rome emeritus,” “Cardinal,” “Pope Benedict XVI,” “Your Holiness,” and straight-up “Joseph Ratzinger” (the Pope’s given name) are all being bandied about.

There’s no set rule—though, Vatican City being an absolute monarchy, it’s possible that Benedict will write one in the coming weeks.

But what about the Pope’s spiritual and ethereal retirement? How is Benedict to be honored and remembered after he dies?

Ferzoco, the Canadian theologian, believes there is a precedent—and that we can find it in the late 13th century, when the last pope to voluntarily abdicate stepped down.

“Celestine V died in 1296,” Ferzoco explains. “Not long after, in 1305, the Pope initiated an inquest into the sanctity of Peter of the Morrone. (Celestine’s given name.) And the Pope began the canonization process,” which involved interviewing over 300 people about the essence of Peter’s holiness.

Eventually, the Pope declared “Peter of the Morrone” to be a saint, and encouraged people to revere him. He was known as Saint Peter, instead of Saint Celestine, to signify that his abdication had been legal and binding.

Benedict XVI, says Ferzoco, can expect the same treatment. He too will be canonized—as Saint Joseph Ratzinger—though, according to the rules, that process can only begin fifty years after his death.

This speaks to a larger trend: “Over the last half century or so, there has been a marked increase in the consideration of popes as holy people. Several have been declared saints or blessed. And there are active dossiers, as people work to canonize others.”

Thus, abdication or not, people will find a way to venerate Benedict. “This is the modern spirituality,” says Ferzoco. “There is a longing to see popes as saints.” The kind that can’t retire.

“Folks, I think it is high time we had an American pope,” Colbert suggests. “After all, God’s an American, that’s why the bible is written in English.”

One of the American candidates is thought to be Timothy Cardinal Dolan, who is the archbishop of New York. Though, The New York Times calls Dolan a “long shot.” And the Cardinal, who is known for his humour, addressed his chances like this: “Don’t bet your lunch money on that one. Bet on the Mets.”

But, Colbert is rooting for the long shot for an important reason.

“Even more importantly, Cardinal Dolan is my personal BFF — Bishop Friend Forever,” said Colbert, while he showed a picture of himself with his arm around Dolan.

]]>[&lt;a href=”//storify.com/MacleansMag/morning-vatican” target=”_blank”&gt;View the story “Morning, #Vatican” on Storify&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;br /&gt; &lt;h1&gt;Morning, #Vatican&lt;/h1&gt; &lt;h2&gt;&lt;/h2&gt; &lt;p&gt;Storified by &lt;a href=”http://storify.com/MacleansMag”&gt;Maclean’s Magazine&lt;/a&gt;&amp;middot; Wed, Feb 13 2013 03:07:15 &lt;/p&gt; &lt;div&gt;Morning, #Vatican. @MacleansMag. http://instagr.am/p/VoOBU_jfc3/Katie Engelhart&lt;/div&gt; &lt;div&gt;Sales clerks at souvenir shop by St Peter’s Basilica tell me they saw it coming. Hope next #Pope is &amp;quot;not German!&amp;quot; @MacleansMag #papalgossipKatie Engelhart&lt;/div&gt; &lt;div&gt;News agencies gather by Saint Peter’s basilica to report on pontifex’s resignation. @MacleansMag #vatican… http://instagr.am/p/VooJl8DfQD/Katie Engelhart&lt;/div&gt; &lt;div&gt;Small building in the back. Window on the top floor, far right. That’s the Pope’s bedroom. pontifex… http://instagr.am/p/Vo2U5EDfcq/Katie Engelhart&lt;/div&gt; &lt;div&gt;Word on the papal streets: @Pontifex will be canonized in 2060s. He’ll be known as St. Joseph Ratzinger: acknowledging his legal abdication.Katie Engelhart&lt;/div&gt; &lt;div&gt;Swiss Guards are on it! Yes, #Pope still guarded by elite unit of unmarried Catholic Swiss men. @ Vatican… http://instagr.am/p/Vo_tlUDfWG/ @MacleansMagKatie Engelhart&lt;/div&gt; &lt;div&gt;A modern day papal army. @ Vatican City http://instagr.am/p/VpJ5RcjfQf/Katie Engelhart&lt;/div&gt; &lt;p&gt;St. Peter’s Basilica—believed to the largest church in Christendom—is perched at far end of Vatican City. From the steps outside the entranceway, a tourist can spot the Apostolic Palace: the official residence of the Pope. The window on the top floor, far right, opens into Benedict’s bedroom.

On Tuesday, hours after Pope Benedict XVI announced his intention to abdicate the papacy, effective Feb. 28th, tourists were craning their camera-laden necks.

The small, cobblestone streets leading up the Basilica are lined with tacky tourist traps that hawk glass bottles of Coke and mummified panini. Small bodegas sell fake marble figurines, bobble-head Pope dolls, and €5.99 copies of Die Hard and Miami Vice.

A stone’s throw from St. Peter’s Square, right outside the San Pietro metro station, is Savelli Arte e Tradizione: a massive “antiques” emporium, offering stamps and statuettes and ornate rosaries. Asked whether more tourists have been stopping by, since Benedict XVI’s announcement, sales manager Betty D’Eletto only winces: “No, not really.”

But soon she loosens up. With a furtive glance around the room, Betty—who has a warm face and honey-coloured hair—whispers: “To be honest, nobody likes this Pope.”

Within minutes, a flock of female sales associates has gathered around to dish the latest papal chatter. “The thing is that everyone loved John Paul [II]” says Juna: a young woman with silvery eyeshadow. “They loved him too much. And so they expected too much from Benedict.” Juna says Benedict XVI paraphernalia tends to linger on shelves. Often, tourists come into the shop looking for medals that commemorate John Paul II. “I say, I don’t have that one—but I have one with Benedict. And they say: Oh no, I don’t want it!”

Roberta, another sales associate, has a simpler explanation. “Benedict doesn’t smile.” She giggles: “He is too much German!” That’s a common refrain of Italians here: that Benedict XVI was too much the stern-faced German theologian, and not enough the Roman man-of-the-people.

Betty adds that she hopes the next pope is an American. If he’s an American, she muses, more rich American tourists will travel to Rome.

On Tuesday morning, hundreds of tourists were snaked around the edges of St. Peter’s square—woven in between the marble pillars—awaiting their entry into the church

By a granite fountain, a French woman in bright pink flared plants stops a young police officer. “Is there a new pope now?,” she bellows. “You have to wait until March,” he says with a shrug.

Near the end of the tourist line, Carolyn and Bryan James (from Cardiff, Wales) and Phyl and Graham Hollister (from Birmingham, England) wait patiently in the sun. Asked what she thinks of the Pope’s decision to abdicate, Carolyn snickers. “We have a Queen who is almost as old as Benedict! She’s curbed down her duties. But she’ll never resign.”

“She’ll never resign,” echoes Phyl. “The Queen of the Holland [Queen Beatrix] just announced that she is resigning. Our Queen just says: ‘Well then!’”

By late morning, white news vans were gathering outside the Square. Reporters, chattering in various European tongues, were setting up cameras, or preparing for standups.

A small group of Swiss guards looked on. Yes, the Pope is still watched over by an elite corps of unmarried, Catholic, Swiss soldiers—as he has been since the 15th century.

By a tent shielding TV cameras, Jean-Baptiste Cocagne, a bonny 27-year-old journalist with Vatican Radio, had turned his microphone inwards to interview foreign journalists on their Benedict coverage.

Looking suave in modish brown running shoes, Cocagne revealed that he felt somewhat overwhelmed. “I only started this job 10 days ago … Yesterday, I interviewed a Cardinal!”

Nearby, a tall Spanish journalist smoking a cigarette was coaxing reluctant tourists to speak into her microphone. “Where do you want the next Pope to come from?” she asked a blond from Britain, who shook her head.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/papal-chatter-in-vatican-city/feed/1How many young people are reading about the Pope’s resignation?http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/how-many-young-people-are-reading-about-the-popes-resignation/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/how-many-young-people-are-reading-about-the-popes-resignation/#commentsTue, 12 Feb 2013 14:04:15 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=349383Tease the day: Nick Taylor-Vaisey on Benedict, North Korea and cameras in the red chamber

Canada is leaving religion behind, statistics tell us. My life certainly bears out those numbers, particularly as they relate to young people. I know very few friends who attend Catholic church, and dozens and dozens of others who are Catholic in name only—resigned to their inherited faith, but by no means enthusiastic. When Benedict XVI announced yesterday he would resign as Pope at the end of the month, I didn’t talk about it at all outside of work. My truly secular existence sat in stark relief to the global reaction—and even the Canadian reaction.

Yesterday, as I so boldly predicted, news networks talked about the pope, and his potential Canadian successor, all day. Look at this morning’s four national newspapers. You’ll find they all put the news above the fold (see links below for the proof). Combined, they published 25 stories, op-eds and editorials that dissect most angles of Benedict XVI’s exit from the papacy. These newspapers know their audiences are older Canadians who skew towards more religious, or at least more concerned about the affairs of the Vatican City. That’s fine, obviously. But I know at lunch today, as I eat a sandwich with a friend, we’ll talk about a thousand things before we talk about the Pope. Among them might be CBC News’ top story this morning: North Korea’s third nuclear test.

But Benedict’s reception in Germany, his fatherland, has long been a thing of awkwardness.

Pope Benedict XVI (formerly Joseph Ratzinger) was born in 1927 in Marktl am Inn, Bavaria, where his father worked as a police officer. Ordained in 1951, Ratzinger spent much of his career in academia—before his appointment as Archbishop of Munich and Freising.

In Germany, Ratzinger’s 2005 election, as the Church’s 265th Pope, was celebrated as a milestone. Benedict XVI became the first German pontiff in more than 1,000 years. His papal rise was widely viewed as a symbol of Germany’s post-war absolution. Famously, the German newspaper Bild greeted news of Ratzinger’s election with the headline “Wir Sind Papst” (We are the pope).

But in the years that followed, many in Germany—where the population is split between Catholics and Protestants—grew wary of Ratzinger’s reactionary politics. The Pope earned the nickname “God’s Rottweiler,” for what The Guardian called his tendency to be “intellectually remorseless.”

(Pope Benedict XVI’s predecessor, the much-beloved Polish Pope John Paul II, was also a conservative figure. But in Germany, John Paul II’s conservatism was venerated—since its accompanying anti-Communism was credited with helping to bring down the Berlin Wall.)

Soon, Ratzinger earned a second nickname: “Nazinger”—a reference to the years he spent in the Hitler Youth and German Army. Though Ratzinger was conscripted into those organizations (he had no choice but to serve), his wartime past would be subject to increased scrutiny.

Ratzinger didn’t help the matter when, in 2009, he reversed the ex-communication of four members of the ultra-conservative Society of St. Pius X; one was Bishop Richard Williamson, who has publicly questioned the extent of the Holocaust and denied that any Jews were killed in gas chambers.

But Benedict XVI’s biggest hit came in 2010, when it was revealed he had overseen the hushing-up of sexual abuse allegations, while serving as a German archbishop. Most notably: Ratzinger had approved a known pedophile’s return to pastoral work. (That priest would later molest boys in a new parish.) More than 180,000 German Catholics left the Church in 2010 alone.

On Monday, in Berlin, German chancellor Angela Merkel praised the Pope’s (almost unprecedented) decision to step down. “We are proud of our countryman,” she extolled, “the first for hundreds of years to take up the role of pope.”

Most of Benedict XVI’s critics, by contrast, kept mum; their criticism, presumably, will come later. Hans Kung, a theologian who was once close with Ratzinger but is now considered his greatest rival, said only that he hoped “Ratzinger will not exercise influence on the choice of his successor.”

Back in the Pope’s hometown, supporters gathered at St. Oswald’s, the church where Ratzinger was christened in 1927, to place flowers before his portrait. Some posed in photographs outside the Pope’s childhood home.

Still others—ignoring broader questions about the Pope’s confused German legacy—turned their attention to more immediate concerns: like whether and how news of the resignation would influence sales of locally brewed Pope Beer.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/germans-grapple-with-popes-confused-legacy/feed/0Could a hockey-playing Canuck become the next pope?http://www.macleans.ca/news/could-a-hockey-playing-canuck-become-the-next-pope/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/could-a-hockey-playing-canuck-become-the-next-pope/#commentsTue, 12 Feb 2013 00:03:24 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=349314MONTREAL – If a Canadian does become the next pope and spiritual leader to the world’s one billion Catholics, the story of his ascension will begin, appropriately enough, with a…

]]>MONTREAL – If a Canadian does become the next pope and spiritual leader to the world’s one billion Catholics, the story of his ascension will begin, appropriately enough, with a hockey injury.

The moment of divine inspiration when Marc Cardinal Ouellet decided he should pursue the priesthood came as he nursed a broken leg, sustained during a game.

As the 17-year-old future cardinal rested his aching leg, he had a lot of extra time to think.

“That was the special moment,” Ouellet told The Canadian Press in a 2005 interview before Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI.

“I lost my season, but I was stopped. I was very much active — over active, hyperactive — and suddenly I started to pray and to read a little more spiritual things because I was unable to play. It was decisive for my vocation.”

Longtime friend Lionel Gendron, a Quebec bishop, said his pal was a good hockey player. He was studying in the province’s northwest to be a teacher, and the injury gave him time to think.

“He reflected on the meaning of life,” said Gendron, a bishop from the Saint-Jean-Longueuil diocese who first met Ouellet in 1965.

Ouellet, 68, is now being touted as one of the likeliest successors — perhaps even the favourite — to take over from Pope Benedict XVI.

On Monday, Benedict became the first pontiff to step down in 600 years when he declared he would resign Feb. 28, citing a lack of strength to do the job.

A pair of foreign bookmakers have ranked Ouellet, who heads the Vatican’s office for bishops, as one of their three likeliest candidates.

One Canadian who will help elect the next pope was reticent Monday when asked about Ouellet’s chances.

“I’ve known Cardinal Ouelette for many, many years,” said Thomas Cardinal Collins, Archbishop of Toronto. “He’s a wonderful cardinal… I think it’s too early to speculate upon the profile of who should be the next pope.”

Collins, Ouellet and retired cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte will travel to Vatican City to participate in conclaves during which ballots will be cast for Benedict’s successor.

Ouellet, named a cardinal in 2003 by Pope John Paul II, hails from the tiny Quebec village of La Motte, nearly 500 kilometres northwest of Ottawa. He was named by Pope Benedict in 2010 to head the powerful Congregation for Bishops, which vets bishops nominations worldwide.

One expert in the church described Ouellet’s resume as one packed with impressive credentials — including his intellectual abilities, his experience as a bishop and the Roman Catholic Primate of Canada, and the fact that, theologically, he is very astute and orthodox.

His relative youth is another element that could work in his favour, said Douglas Farrow, a professor in McGill University’s religious studies department.

But his qualifications don’t make him a lock on the papacy, Farrow added. He said the cardinals believe their choice to be divinely inspired, and the process can produce real surprises.

Other experts expressed doubt that the former Archbishop of Quebec City is a contender.

Church historian Benoit Lacroix suggested Ouellet’s experience in Quebec City could hardly be described as a success.

He said his lengthy time abroad had left him unprepared for the rapid secularization of Quebec society, and he struggled to deal with it.

“He got there without understanding the evolution of Quebec — that Quebec had changed a lot over 10, 15 years,” said Lacroix, a professor at Universite de Montreal.

“Quebec was no longer actively Catholic like it was. He got there with this image from his childhood, I’d say. From that standpoint he was maybe surprised, almost too surprised I believe, with respect to those events.”

Ouellet, who speaks several languages, has decades of experience at different levels of the church.

He has advanced degrees in theology and philosophy from two universities in Rome. He served in Colombia, and as rector at the Grand Seminary in Montreal between 1990 and 1994 and of St. Joseph’s Seminary in Edmonton from 1994 to 1997.

In Rome, he was chairman of dogmatic theology at a branch of the Pontifical Lateran University, and from 1995 to 2000 was on the staff of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy.

Ouellet’s name was mentioned as long shot in 2005 to succeed John Paul II.

Last year, Ouellet shared his thoughts about whether he had hopes of becoming pope.

“I don’t see myself at this level, not at all… because I see how much it entails (in terms of) responsibility,” he said in response to a question on the subject in an interview with the Catholic news organization Salt + Light TV. The exchange was published online last April.

“On the other hand, I say I believe that the Holy Spirit will help the cardinals do a good choice for the leadership of the church, the Catholic church, in the future.”

Ouellet has been vocal in political debates at home.

Anti-abortion remarks he made in May 2010 solicited angry reactions from a number of politicians and women’s rights activists in Quebec.

At the time, Ouellet told media during a pro-life rally in Quebec City that abortion was unjustifiable, even in cases of rape.

In 2005, he testified before a Canadian Senate committee studying legislation on same-sex marriage. He urged lawmakers to block the bill and defended the role of religious people in participating in the debate.

Ouellet said he feared that the adoption of Bill C-38 would inevitably lead to religious people being regarded as bigots and homophobes.

He urged parliamentarians to remember that while Canada’s Charter of Rights guarantees equality for all, it also states in its preamble that Canada was founded on principles that include the supremacy of God.

“The state must treat homosexuals with respect and find accommodations that are consistent with their rights, without placing them in a category to which they do not belong, the category of marriage,” Ouellet told the 2005 hearing.

His arguments failed to turn the debate. The same-sex marriage legislation, Bill C-38, was approved by the Senate several days later.

In Ottawa, Prime Minister Harper said Monday that he was shocked to hear Pope Benedict was renouncing the papacy due to his declining health.

Harper noted that two Canadian saints — Brother Andre Bessette and Kateri Tekakwitha — were canonized during Benedict’s papacy. Collins, an archbishop, was elevated to the College of Cardinals.

If some of the predictions ring true when a successor to Benedict is chosen, in the coming weeks, many more tales from Canada will be told at the Vatican.

Ouellet’s mother, Graziella Ouellet, told a local newspaper that her son had a knack for bringing home the biggest catches using only small pieces of bread as bait.

“He only had to put his rod in the water and he caught many fish,” she told the Echo Abitibien in an July 2010 interview.

Graziella Ouellet said that God guided those fish, because her son often prayed before he headed toward the water.

Gendron agreed that Ouellet, like most young Quebecers at that time, was religious long before his hockey-related revelation led him to shift gears and become a priest.

The cardinal’s connection to hockey, meanwhile, has remained intact despite the injury. Gendron said Ouellet still laces up with his nephews when he visits his family in Quebec’s Abitibi region.

“Physically, he’s in very good shape,” Gendron said.

– with files from Magdaline Boutros, Diana Mehta in Toronto and James Keller in Vancouver

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/could-a-hockey-playing-canuck-become-the-next-pope/feed/0The next steps to choose a new pope in a secret conclavehttp://www.macleans.ca/general/the-next-steps-to-chose-a-new-pope-in-a-secret-conclave/
http://www.macleans.ca/general/the-next-steps-to-chose-a-new-pope-in-a-secret-conclave/#commentsMon, 11 Feb 2013 15:30:43 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=349065When Pope Benedict XVI resigns on Feb. 28, there won’t be a lot of precedent to choose a new pope. In fact, a pope hasn’t resigned in about 600 years,…

]]>When Pope Benedict XVI resigns on Feb. 28, there won’t be a lot of precedent to choose a new pope. In fact, a pope hasn’t resigned in about 600 years, since Pope Gregory XII in 1415. But Vatican officials have already said that they will choose a new pope by Easter (March 31) and here’s how it will very likely happen.

1. Eligible cardinals are summoned to Rome

The members of the College of Cardinals, the Church’s 203 most senior members, will be called to Rome by the Dean of the College of Cardinals. Right now, that’s Italian Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who replaced Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger when he became pope. However, only members of the college who are less than 80 years of age will be summoned, meaning 118 cardinals could take part in the conclave. This conclave will be able to choose any baptized Catholic male to be the next pope but, writes BBC News, the members of the conclave will almost certainly pick from their own group.

While in the conclave, the cardinals will vote for a new pope every day in the Sistine Chapel. Historically, a candidate needed at least two-thirds of the votes to become pope. But, but Pope John Paul II changed this rule in 1996. Now, if a conclusive two-thirds vote is not reached after 30 ballots, a majority is enough to elect a pope. The dean, in this case Cardinal Sodano, will ask the newly elected pope if he accepts the position. The new pope also gets to decide which name he wants to be known by.

4. Send up the smoke

Each day, the ballots are burned after voting. Chemicals are added to the ballots to make them either black or white. Black means no decision and white means there is a new pope.

5. Pope is announced

The pope will be fitted with his robes and faithful will gather in St. Peter’s Basilica for the official announcement, which always begins: “Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum; habemus papam…” which means: “I announce to you a great joy… we have a pope.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/general/the-next-steps-to-chose-a-new-pope-in-a-secret-conclave/feed/0Marc Ouellet: Welcome back to the national conversationhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/could-marc-ouellet-replace-pope-benedict-xvi/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/could-marc-ouellet-replace-pope-benedict-xvi/#commentsMon, 11 Feb 2013 14:03:45 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=349030Tease the day: Get ready to learn much more about the fast-rising Canadian Cardinal

“I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.” With that stark assessment of his hampered ability to perform papal duties, Pope Benedict XVI declared he will resign his position, effective Feb. 28. This is big, to say the least. No pontiff has resigned in six centuries. News broke early this morning, and this morning’s papers are more concerned with Grammy Awards fallout than Vatican politics. But as for the rest of the day: expect to see Benedict’s aging face all over news networks as far as the eye can see.

Expect to learn more about one Canadian man who’s rumoured to be filling Benedict’s shoes in the Vatican City. You’ve heard his name before, likely, because he’s risen quickly in Rome’s ranks: Marc Cardinal Ouellet, the 68-year-old Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops and President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. Quebec’s former archbishop once told La Presse that the pope’s duties “would be a nightmare” to perform. Cardinal Ouellet, welcome back to the national conversation.

Marc Cardinal Ouellet, the Canadian head of the Vatican’s office for bishops, is one of the top names being floated to replace Pope Benedict XVI after his surprise resignation announcement.

Ouellet, 68, is a Quebecker who was the Archbishop of Quebec from 2003 to 2010. He was named as one of the possibilities to replace Pope John Paul in 2005, but he wasn’t chosen.

More recently, John L. Allen Jr., a reporter at The National Catholic Reporter, put forward Ouellet’s name as one of his top three choices to become the next pope.

His position as Archbishop of Quebec means “he has a track record in leading the church in a difficult and highly secular environment,” wrote Allen. Also, Ouellet spent 10 years as a missionary in Columbia and he is fluent in French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Italian, meaning he has both the international experience and the language skills needed to lead Catholics around the world.

Ouellet isn’t without his own controversy, however. In 2010 he was forced to defend comments he made about abortion at a news conference, calling it a “moral crime,” and saying that it was as serious as murder, even in the case of rape. Those comments drew condemnation from Quebec politicians and women’s groups.

His older brother, Paul Ouellet, has also been convicted of sexual assault against minors, something which he served 15 months of community service for. In 2009, Paul Ouellet took out a newspaper ad to explain his conviction, saying his only mistake was that he responded to “advances” made by two young people, who were aged 13 and 15.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/general/could-the-man-to-replace-pope-benedict-xvi-be-canadian/feed/27Transcript: Pope Benedict XVI’s declaration: ‘I thank you most sincerely’http://www.macleans.ca/general/transcript-pope-benedict-xvis-declaration-i-thank-you-most-sincerely/
http://www.macleans.ca/general/transcript-pope-benedict-xvis-declaration-i-thank-you-most-sincerely/#commentsMon, 11 Feb 2013 12:30:03 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=349039Pope Benedict XVI shocked the world this morning with news that he plans to resign at the end of the month. What follows is a transcript of his declaration:

]]>Pope Benedict XVI shocked the world this morning with news that he plans to resign at the end of the month. What follows is a transcript of his declaration:

From the Vatican, 10 February 2013

Dear Brothers,

I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.

Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/general/transcript-pope-benedict-xvis-declaration-i-thank-you-most-sincerely/feed/1Pope to resign Feb. 28http://www.macleans.ca/news/vatican-says-pope-resigning-on-feb-28/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/vatican-says-pope-resigning-on-feb-28/#commentsMon, 11 Feb 2013 12:08:19 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=349022Pope Benedict XVI: 'My strengths due to an advanced age are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry'

]]>VATICAN CITY (AP) – Pope Benedict XVI announced Monday that he would resign Feb. 28 – the first pontiff to do so in nearly 600 years. The decision sets the stage for a conclave to elect a new pope before the end of March.

The 85-year-old pope announced his decision in Latin during a meeting of Vatican cardinals on Monday morning.

He emphasized that carrying out the duties of being pope – the leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics worldwide – requires “both strength of mind and body.”

“After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths due to an advanced age are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry,” he told the cardinals. “I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only by words and deeds but no less with prayer and suffering.

“However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of St. Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary – strengths which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.”

The last pope to resign was Pope Gregory XII, who stepped down in 1415 in a deal to end the Great Western Schism among competing papal claimants.

Benedict called his choice “a decision of great importance for the life of the church.”

The move sets the stage for the Vatican to hold a conclave to elect a new pope by mid-March, since the traditional mourning time that would follow the death of a pope doesn’t have to be observed.

There are several papal contenders in the wings, but no obvious front-runner – the same situation when Benedict was elected pontiff in 2005 after the death of Pope John Paul II.

1. Stressed out from exams and warding off a cold? Drink beer! The National Postwrites that Japan’s Sapporo Breweries is promoting a study that says hops, a key ingredient in beer, may have respiratory virus-fighting powers. Researchers at Sapporo Medical University (a partner in research, but no relation to the brewery) found that humulone, a chemical compound found in hops, helps protect against cold-like symptoms in adults and more serious illnesses like pneumonia and bronchitis viruses in children. Note: Do not actually guzzle IPAs for breakfast. Sapporo researcher Jun Fuchimoto told the AFP that someone would have to drink around 30 350-mL cans for the beer to have any anti-viral effect.

2. On Wednesday, Pope Benedict XVI joined well-known Twitter user Jesus and sent out his first tweet “in perhaps the most drawn out Twitter launch ever,” the Associated Press reports via CBC. The ceremony included a proclamation as the 85-year-old pontiff tapped the screen of an iPad: “And now the pope will tweet!” The inaugural papal message: “Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart.” Aw. At last count, the pontiff’s English @Pontifex account was closing in on 850,000 followers. Bad news for anyone hoping to hit up the pope via direct message: The Vatican told AP the pontiff won’t actually write his own tweets.

3. Calgary’s Mount Royal University is feeling the budget crunch amid revenue shortfalls and government funding freezes. The Calgary Herald reports that the school’s financial woes stem from the perfect storm of launching new programs as provincial cash dried up. Mount Royal announced six new degree programs in 2009 as part of its transition from a college to university, but faces a $5.4-million deficit in 2013-14 academic year. In response, university officials voted to hike tuition by 2.15 per cent and cut enrollment.

4. Should universities plan degree programs around the economy and job market? It depends who you ask. The Montreal Gazette reports that many post-secondary leaders are bullish on the idea, but a new study from the Institut de recherche et d’informations socio-économiques (IRIS) argues that “measuring the output of universities in terms of market relevance” sets a precedent for universities to commodify knowledge – and turn students into consumers. IRIS researcher Eric Martin told the Gazette: “This plugs universities to the job market, destroying their independence.”

Ontario Judge Maureen Forestell may be the Hells Angels’ only friend on the bench. The Ontario judge ruled that a 2007 police raid had no right to seize their gold, diamonds, belt buckles and leather goods just because they had the Angels’ “death head” logo emblazoned on them. Forestell said the bling wasn’t directly related to any crime sprees or attempts to intimidate people. In fact, she added, the club has a rule requiring its members to remove their merchandise “when committing offences,” and she ordered the swag returned to the bikers.

Too random an act of kindness?

New York City cop Larry DePrimo became a seasonal hero last week when a photo of him giving a pair of boots and socks to a barefoot man on a frigid Manhattan night went viral. While the 25-year-old police officer was instantly beloved—and earned an invite to the Today show—it took New York’s media a few days to track down the man with the new boots. When they did, the story grew a lot more complicated. Jeffrey Hillman isn’t homeless, as he appeared to be. The deeply troubled Army vet has an apartment paid for by a benefit for homeless veterans. It also turns out Hillman is still barefoot. He told reporters that although he appreciated the cop’s gesture, “I could lose my life” for wearing the $100 Skechers boots on the street.

Your ticket to Mars

This year, Internet billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX, a private firm that builds spaceships, docked its Dragon spacecraft twice with the International Space Station—a first for a private company. Musk has bigger ambitions: he wants to put a human colony on Mars. Speaking at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London last week, the co-founder of PayPal and Tesla Motors said he’d build a colony of 80,000 people willing to shell out $500,000 for a ticket, the price of a middle-class home in Toronto. No word yet on a timeline, but the 41-year-old has said he’d like to retire on Mars, so he can’t put it off too long.

Good news, bad news, hockey fans

Canada’s world junior team could end up benefiting from a little star power if the NHL lockout persists over Christmas. Headlining this year’s selection camp roster is Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, the Edmonton Oilers star who tallied 18 goals and 34 assists in the NHL last season. The 19-year-old would surely help Canada in its quest to win a gold for the first time since 2009 and add to a tournament that will be like manna from heaven for the game’s hockey-starved fans. But even in their time of need, the devotion of Canadian fans will be tested—Team Canada’s first three games are due to be broadcast live from Russia at 4:30 a.m. EST.

C U 2nite, Winnie?

Who was the first giggling schoolgirl to get a message with the acronym “OMG”? Winston Churchill, it emerged this week. Its first known use was not in a text message or an email, but in a 1917 letter from the British admiral Lord Fisher to Churchill. Taking time out from the war, Fisher mentioned a rumour of a possible knighthood, adding “O.M.G. (Oh! My God!).”

The Zucker touch

Few among us are able to land fantastic, high-profile jobs no matter how badly the last one went. The exception being Jeff Zucker. Last week, the former NBC president—famous for taking the network from first to fourth place, and for disastrous ideas like giving Jay Leno a prime-time show—was named the new head of CNN Worldwide, the struggling news channel. Zucker, a former producer of the Today show, isn’t promising a turnaround: ratings are “not what defines the health of this business,” he said last week after accepting the job. He should know.

Holy tweeter

On Monday, Pope Benedict XVI joined Twitter. By day’s end, he’d racked up almost a quarter of a million followers—without having issued a single tweet. “The Pope is not the type of person who is checking his iPad or BlackBerry at meetings, so the tweets aren’t going to be spontaneous like those from most other Twitter users,” said the Holy See’s media advisor, Greg Burke. @Pontifex, who is expected to send his first tweet next week, will be dispensing “pearls of wisdom” in eight languages, he added.

More exits in Quebec Montreal’s political landscape is undergoing a seismic change as politicians depart, one after the other. Since the high-profile resignations of Gérald Tremblay and Gilles Vaillancourt, the mayors of Montreal and Laval, two more mayors have announced their resignations. Richard Marcotte, the mayor of Mascouche, a suburb just north of Montreal, resigned this week, seven months after his arrest on charges of fraud, corruption and conspiracy. Marcotte, who denies the charges, is alleged to have received “benefits” in return for municipal contracts. Meanwhile Claude Trudel, the 70-year-old mayor of the Montreal borough of Verdun and a staunch Tremblay supporter, stepped down this week. Calling himself “shaken” by the departure of Montreal’s long-time mayor, who resigned amid a corruption scandal, Trudel rejected playing a role in the coalition formed by Montreal’s interim mayor, Michael Applebaum.

A doggone shame

Who will stand up for dogs’ rights? New Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Mark Buehrle, that’s who. The former Marlin—and long-time pit bull owner—clashed with Miami’s ban on the dogs, but had the option to live in another county. Since the dogs are banned throughout Ontario, Buehrle is considering moving his family to New York state and making a daily two-hour commute to the Rogers Centre. Buehrle, who describes his pit bull as “so loving and so awesome,” complains the law is “discriminatory,” based on nothing but “the way a dog looks.”

Trading one jail for another

A B.C. woman involved in what American authorities call the “largest eco-terrorism case in United States history” turned herself in last week after more than a decade on the run. Rebecca Rubin, 39, is facing charges in three states, including arson, conspiracy and use of a destructive device, relating to firebombing wild horse corrals in Oregon and California and a fire at a Colorado ski resort. Rubin “was tired of life passing her by,” said her lawyer, Ian Donaldson. “She had been living in a prison without walls.”

Mercy

Last spring, the bodies of 54 sled dogs were pulled from a mass grave near Whistler, B.C. Robert Fawcett, a former part-owner of Howling Dog Tours, pleaded guilty in connection with the deaths of nine, saying the cull was necessary after a post-Olympics slump in sales. But his actions haunt him to this day, he revealed in a statement delivered at his sentencing hearing last week. Fawcett, who received death threats after news of the killings broke, suffered a nervous breakdown and was sent to a mental-health facility. The judge stopped short of giving him jail time, handing him three years’ probation, 200 hours of community service and a $1,500 fine. Fawcett still has nightmares about killing the dogs. “I will never stop feeling guilty for the suffering that those dogs endured that day,” he said through his lawyer. “I feel like a part of me died with those dogs.”

Fieri in Hogtown

Guy Fieri, the Food Network star with famously frosted tips, was spotted in Toronto filming Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives this week. Rumours put him at local greasy spoon landmarks like the Lakeview, Caplansky’s Deli and Hey Meatball. Fieri’s tour was capped off by a cooking session with Toronto rapper Drake. The bombastic chef seems to have recovered from a deliciously nasty review of his restaurant, Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar, in which New York Times critic Pete Wells wrote: “When you hung that sign by the entrance that says, WELCOME TO FLAVOR TOWN!, were you just messing with our heads?”

What was that about ‘filth’?

Angus T. Jones is no Charlie Sheen. But the Two and a Half Men co-star seemed to be next in line to get fired when a video of him denouncing his popular sitcom as “filth” and urging viewers to tune out went viral last week. But fans paid him no attention, and Jones backed down, quickly issuing an abashed public apology. Unlike Sheen, who soon got another show, Jones is totally expendable: he wasn’t even scheduled to appear in the two episodes following the outburst, and rumours have it that producers are considering replacing him with popular guest star Miley Cyrus.

I’ll text it to you—what’s your number?

It’s gratifying to know that even Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep couldn’t resist taking an iPhone selfie with Hillary Clinton. The pair were attending the Kennedy Center Honors dinner, held at the U.S. State Department in Washington last weekend.